Hidden
by indiejane
Summary: This story corresponds to chapters in Anfield's "The End of the Beginning," and answers questions about Tig's mystery girl-it's not a stand-alone work. An experiment in exploring a REALLY dark relationship, it may not be for everyone. Tig/OC.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

(this corresponds to Chapter 22 of "The End of the Beginning")

There'd been a point where the sound of a motorcycle, any motorcycle, could make her breath catch and make her stand a little straighter, thinking _maybe it'll be him this time_. And whatever she happened to be doing, Aisha would stop and just listen, waiting to see if she'd hear his step, his key. Anytime she heard a motorcycle outside.

But you couldn't keep that sort of thing up living in Charming, there were enough motorcycles around that you'd be climbing the walls inside of hours.

Instead, she'd let the sound of them fade into the background, even when she could hear them right next to the window, listening instead for a silence when he'd abruptly cut the motor. It wasn't until the silence that she'd start to breathe quicker, do an inventory, systems check, was everything right, the way he wanted it? The small apartment was pristine, the bed unwrinkled, and nobody had to know it was because she hadn't slept in it in the last three nights, preferring instead to curl up around the boots he'd left, the ones she'd brought back to a perfect mirror-like jet-black shine, just like he knew she would.

But tonight, when the silence came, and the motorcycle cut off in the parking lot, it wasn't for her. Despite the fact that it had pulled her out of sleep, just as it happened all the times she waited for the days, when he'd come for her… this time, when she went to the window the man outside wasn't the one she expected. It was one of the others. The young, handsome one; she'd seen him before. Her breath caught, hand held at the edge of the curtain, wondering how they'd known to look for her here, wondering if he'd told.

He wouldn't have. Couldn't have. He'd promised, the very first time.

Without thinking about it, her hand went to the spot where her cheekbone met her temple, like it did probably a dozen times a day, tracing the two lines of the scar she'd had for a year now. And like it always did, it told her who she was and where she belonged, and though she kept the lights off so that the man outside wouldn't know he was being watched, she wasn't afraid anymore. Whatever the reason he was here, it wouldn't be for her. She'd stay hidden, the way he wanted. The way they both wanted.

She'd been fifteen.

Fifteen but looking younger, both from being hungry what had seemed like most of her life, but also because to stay a kid might mean flying under the radar, not suddenly coming to the notice of one of her mother's johns or worse, the dealers who'd become pimps when the money ran out. It was why she kept her hair so short, buzzing it down until it was barely a half-an-inch long and you could see the blue shadows at her temples. She stayed out as much as possible, as far away from the house as she could, just one of the kids that hung back into shadows in this part of Santa Rosa, where the sound of a motorcycle meant someone's mom was going to be kicking them out for a few hours, and the beautiful parts of Humboldt seemed to have broken down by the time you got into these hills.

Aisha'd been named by her dad, but there weren't any memories beyond that, and the first of the "dads" that had made their way through the house had made sure to let her know she wasn't his. After that she stopped asking.

By the time she was in junior high, the boyfriends had given way to something else, as her mother's prettiness had been eaten away by the meth and most of the men who stopped up here could see the desperate calculation in her eyes. Amber, her mom, didn't have it in her to be a good thief, or a particularly good whore for that matter—always in debt to someone or other, one of the dealers who'd started looking a little too closely at Aisha before she'd taken the clippers to her dark hair. Amber thought she knew what she was doing, though, thought so even when she'd decided that ripping off her johns would be a better way of evening the score with the dealers, get them off her back for a bit.

That wouldn't have been the first time Aisha'd come home at dawn, hoping to sneak in for some sleep and a shower before Amber woke up, hoping there wasn't anyone there who might notice her, only to find that someone had decided to teach her mother a lesson. Usually, she'd wake up eventually, light a menthol cigarette with shaking hands, and survey the damage in their bathroom mirror. If it was something makeup wouldn't cover, she'd just take some pills and sleep it off until she felt like it wasn't her problem. _You're going to get yourself killed, _Aisha would think, surprised at how little that thought had come to scare her, wondering if maybe that was the point of the whole thing.

No, it was far from the first time she'd come back to it, but this time he was still there, standing over her mother, who'd obviously taken a couple of good ones to the face and wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. Amber was still breathing, though, which was more than you could say for Tex, the dealer/boyfriend/pimp du jour, who was missing the better part of his jaw and had a ragged, dark hole where his left eye was supposed to be.

She was caught up in looking at what had happened to Tex's face, surprised at her own thoughts (_Good,_ she was thinking, _good. He won't be after me anymore, looking at me and thinking he could make a lot more money out of me than he'd ever get out of her._ At the very least, that fear was done with. There'd be the next one, but at least he wouldn't be the one to turn her out. Not yet.) She was so lost in this that she didn't notice that the man who'd done it (_obviously, the gun still in his hand and a cellphone in the other_) was still there, and that he'd stopped short and was staring at her. She took a step back, then stopped. Start running, and for all she knew he'd think she was running to get the cops. So instead she just stopped, breathed, and waited to see what he was going to do.

The man looked down at her and sighed a bit, all business. "You her kid?"

Aisha nodded.

"Right. She'll be OK, she sleeps it off a bit. You want her to see a doctor?"

She shook her head. He didn't waste time looking surprised. "Fine. OK, kid, here's what's going to happen. Some friends are gonna come up here and clear _this_ piece of shit out of here," gesturing to Tex with the gun, "and if she's up they might have a few words with _her_ about who she tries to rip off next time she's turning tricks. Her and this dead piece of shit here. So you're gonna clear out while they do, and you were never here tonight, and if you want to come back in a few days, you're gonna just forget you saw any of this, right?"

She looked up and met his eyes, and nodded again, then found her voice. "Wait."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't have a lot of time here, kid."

She nodded, and without wasting any motion, stepped delicately over to Tex's body, grasping and half-lifting his dead weight by the collar of his jacket. It wasn't easy—she'd never been strong—but she was able to move him enough to get the roll he carried inside his belt and the bag in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. She tossed both at the feet of the man standing there. She could tell he wasn't the sort to register surprise, but there was a fair amount of it at the back of his eyes. "What's this?"

"He comes here last, gets what she made after he picks up his money from a lot of other girls. There's probably a few grand there. That in the bag, well, he doesn't do the shit he has the girls doing. Says meth'll eat out your eyes. That's probably some seriously pure coke. It'll get to you another few grand, you move it now." It was the longest few sentences she'd strung together in almost as long as she could remember, but she was thinking fast now, desperately calculating and trying to keep her brain moving a few steps ahead of her words.

He laughed. "And you're giving this to me?"

She shrugged, met his eyes. "Yeah. I figure I owe you." She held his gaze just long enough for her meaning to be clear, and saw him look at her for the first time, a searching stare that took her in, dissected and catalogued her, then spit her back out.

He whistled slowly, then started very quietly to laugh. "I thought you were a boy."

She nodded again. "That's the idea."

He laughed again. "It's not a bad one. So why give me this?" He was still gesturing with the gun, this time at the roll of cash and the baggie that sat on the bloodstained carpet between them. "You could probably use it, I figure it even belongs to you."

She shook her head, heart beating faster. "No. It's for you. OK? It's for you. I want—"

He looked at her. "You want to buy something? What do you want?"

"I want out of here. I want you to take me with you."

She half-expected him to just laugh at take off, but instead he holstered the gun and gave her a searching look. "What the fuck are you talking about? How old are you, twelve?"

"Fifteen. There's at least six grand there if you count the coke. It's yours. I want to go with you."

She'd expected it not to work, expected if it did work it would be a long desperate negotiation, that she'd have to explain or promise or _something_, but instead he just shrugged. "Fine. I don't have time for this. Pick that shit up. This dead fuck's got a bike out back, get his helmet and meet me around the side."

Ten minutes later she was wrapped around him, making the run from Santa Rosa to Charming, for the first and last time.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

That had been four years ago. Four years ago he'd told her she could sleep in this one-room apartment, a place he kept that the rest of them didn't know about, for a few days. Get a shower, something to eat. Then she'd have to figure something else out for herself, he told her. He wasn't much of a dad and didn't have the slightest desire to try it again with some random whores' kid out of Humboldt.

As usual, she'd nodded. Taken it in.

He didn't make her go, though. She'd stayed on in the apartment, scrubbing it to the corners, trying every way she could to show she was grateful. It got to where she could see he liked coming back there, that it was a different place from wherever he spent his time. He wouldn't sleep there, but would open the door with his key and watch her do whatever she was doing, and maybe he'd give her something else, another task. He wasn't patient, but she liked it that way. When he taught her to do his boots right, she could tell he'd learned it in the military, and after that, no matter how much road dust he came in with, she'd made sure he could see his reflection in them when he came back. He'd come with groceries and tell her to cook, and when she wasn't much good at that—her mother had barely known how to use the stove—he'd asked her what the fuck was the matter with her. She'd learned.

It never seemed right, somehow, to sit next to him, and she'd stand at his right side, waiting for him to to need something. Somehow, when he was here like this, everything seemed to suddenly quiet down inside of her. It was like for the first time she felt _right_.

Only she'd be kidding herself if she pretended that was ever enough. Early on, she'd just watch the way he moved, take not of the tension in the way he sat, the way he was aware of every sound. Holding her breath, she'd touch him occasionally. His hand as she set down a plate. His shoulder as she stood there next to him. He didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't give and sign that he had, but there were these rare occasions when he'd touch her back, his hand ruffling her hair as it had started to grow in or a firm grasp on her upper arm accompanying an order. She'd wait for it, hope for it every time she saw him, until she had to admit that she wanted more than protection. She thought maybe she was restless, tired of being hidden away, but finally realized that that wasn't it—she liked it there, in their place, he could hide her away forever as far as she was concerned, but she wanted to know more than she did about what it might feel like to be closer to him. Things she'd spent most of her life trying to hide from were now the only thing she could think about.

And she convinced herself it had to be on his mind too. As the months went by, she told herself he had to be keeping her around for a reason. Maybe he was just holding back because he knew what she'd seen, what had almost happened to her so many times, and he knew she must be scared. Even as she thought that, though, a part of her knew that if it was something he wanted, he wouldn't have been held off by pity.

She waited for him on her seventeenth birthday.

She'd spent six months here, had started making a few trips around town by herself even, was starting to feel like maybe it was a place she'd get to stay. He'd left the money she'd taken off Tex all those months ago sitting in the nightstand drawer, and she tried to dole it out, superstitiously thinking that maybe when it was gone, if she was costing him something to keep, he might make her leave. As long as there was still some of that money left, she was paying her way.

But that day she'd used some of it to buy a few things to wear. She like to wear dresses now, avoided dressing in tight jeans like her mother had, tried to look like a nice girl. That night she'd tried especially hard, and pushed her hair awkward-stage hair behind her ears, tried to make herself look pretty, and waited for him.

He didn't come that night, didn't show until a few nights later, but she'd realized sometime around 4am on her birthday that she didn't need for him to remember her… it was enough that he let her remember _him_. That he let her wait for him. And in the waiting, she'd made herself realize what she was waiting for, admit to herself what she wanted. If it didn't make her any better than her mother, fine. As long as it was him and only him, she didn't care.

And so she listened for his bike through the days that followed, and when she finally hear it, and heard his boots outside, she met him at the door ready to give him everything. She might as well have wrapped herself up as a present, it was that obvious in her eyes. And as he stood there, looking down at her, she gathered together her courage and, standing on tiptoe, lay one hand on his chest while she reached up with the other to stroke the side of his face, silently begging him to kiss her.

She tasted blood before she realized he'd backhanded her across the room.

"You think this is what I keep you here for?" he asked, her, hauling her to a standing position by the front of her dress. "You think I'm that desperate for pussy that I'm going to keep some whores' kid tucked away? That's what you want to be?"

She found her voice. "I want to be what _you_ want me to be."

He'd abruptly dropped her back to the ground, turned around, and walked out without another word.

Aisha shook her head a bit to clear it, reached up and touched the scar again. The Son was still in the parking lot at the side of the building, pacing and smoking. Several times he looked like he was going to walk into the building, then he'd turn around and walk back to his bike, as if in disgust. She wasn't sure what he was there for, but she wasn't going to take any chances.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

This corresponds to Anfield's "End of the Beginning" Chapter 23, and there's been a time and POV shift. In other words, I'm filling in blanks in Anfield's story as requested, not writing a full stand-alone. So, if you haven't read that one, this story's about to stop making sense pretty soon. Hope you like it anyway!

Tig cursed silently at his own discomfiture when Gemma questioned him about the boots. Damn Aisha was almost too good at her fucking job. Then, as usual, when he thought about her at the club, or anytime really when he wasn't at the apartment, he pushed her out of his mind. She didn't have any place with all this.

He'd come to realize that even picturing her at the parties or Teller-Morrow infuriated him. The idea of her becoming a part of the place, like V. had, literally disgusted him. It was part of why he'd hated it when V. had come around, and why he tried to make sure to piss her off or scare the shit out of her enough that she'd stay away from him. Something about seeing a girl here who wasn't a Crow Eater, wasn't an Old Lady, didn't have a real place anyone could name… despite the fact that he couldn't stand linking them in the same train of thought, it reminded him of Aisha. Watching Chibs start to keep her in line made the comparison that much stronger. Neither Chibs or V. were as secretive about what was going on as they seemed to think they were—they both walked around with it all over them. V. wasn't giving Chibs any lip like she had Jax, either. Tig laughed a bit at that and put it out of his mind.

Later that day, though, as Clay was going over what he was going to need to get the Oregon run together now that V. was off of it, his mind wandered to Aisha again. Six months since he'd started fucking her—the scar on her cheek had healed and turned from red to white. And he still hadn't really sat down and put it together, just knew that it wasn't something he could let himself do as often as he'd like. He had to keep it an occasional thing.

As he often did when trying to decide if he'd head over there for the evening, he ran over all the reasons not to in his mind. First off, ride the same route too many nights in a row and someone was bound to pick up on it—even parking the bike over there more than a couple of times a week seemed like a bad idea. It wasn't that alone, though. He saw the way she looked at him when he came in the room, knew that her whole fucking life revolved around waiting for his step in the hall. He couldn't let her get too comfortable, give her some idea that she'd moved from a servant's to a lover's role in his mind. It was too good the way it was.

That was the last reason—the one he didn't like to look at. Every time his mind ran up against how being with her was different from the other women he offhandedly took to bed, he'd decide to just let it go. She was a fucked up girl, that was all. He'd done most of it, admittedly, and her shitty childhood had probably taken care of the rest.

Driving her into Charming that first time, she'd been so fucking small that he couldn't even feel her on the bike for most of the way, kept having to shrug off the uneasy feeling that it was some kind of ghost back there. Heh. Maybe there was a legend he'd missed hearing about--the Santa Rosa Orphan. You get ripped off by some fucked-out skank, beat her to death and blow away her pimp (he was pretty sure, despite what he'd said, that that bitch wasn't going to make it after he'd worked her over), and a spooky-looking kid appears and tries to hitch a ride with you. One of those stories like the devil by the side of the road or the girl in the white dress or some shit.

She was real enough when he got her into the apartment though. Real, freezing, starving, and pretty damn close to shock—he'd seen the look before, seen it in kids walking away from houses that had been reduced to rubble. She needed sleep, and before he'd thought about it, he'd silently gestured her to the narrow bed where she'd fallen asleep instantly, trustingly, and then he'd sat smoking cigarettes at the old, chipped kitchen table and wondering what the fuck he was going to do with _this_, now.

Well, he'd certainly never intended to start fucking her. She'd been the one to approach him, actually, and in retrospect he could appreciate the courage it must have taken for this girl who hadn't been able to bring herself to ask him for a blanket or something to eat her first day there. He'd knocked her across the room for it, not because he hadn't thought about it before—the idea of doing it had crossed his mind—but because he didn't want her getting ideas that any of this was going to be about what _she_ wanted.

He'd come back the next day, and the next. Silently watched her. He noted that nothing had changed, that she still did everything he told her, everything he taught her. Silently, he seemed to approve. Still, he held himself away from her, and their relationship had subtly altered during that time. It had always been undefined; Tig acted on impulse, his visits to the apartment as little planned as his bringing her to Charming had been.

His rejection of her brought the need for definition to the forefront of things. Who was she to him? He'd never been able to view her as a surrogate daughter, somehow—she was too different from his own daughters, and she was too wary, too formal, to really play that role for him. No, he realized, that wasn't why he'd rejected her. It wasn't as if there was a closeness there that shouldn't be violated. The opposite, if anything.

So why had he let her stay there for so long? Counting back, after that night, he realized it had been over a year, or… wait, two years, now? He'd had the girl living in his backup place for two years and still hadn't figured out what the fuck to do with her? The thought had taken him aback—I mean, sure, he'd been busy, but two years? Then again, he guessed it wasn't actually that strange, considering. It had, after all, taken about three months for him to learn her fucking name. She hadn't offered it, and he hadn't thought to ask. She'd known how he liked his coffee and his leather and his place before he'd know what her name was.

He'd mulled it over, thought about it, and come to the decision that he was going to keep his hands off of her. It wasn't a problem having her there, not yet, but he wasn't going to touch her, that was for sure.

Two nights later he'd found himself doing just that, hitting her over and over again across the face, making her tell him with each slap that she was grateful he let her stay.

Well—it wasn't touching. It wasn't, you know, sex, or anything. Just making sure things stayed in line, the way they were supposed to be.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 (Following "The End of the Beginning" Chapter 24)

Tig stayed long enough for them to deal with the V. business—that bitch Stahl was going to have her work cut out for her this time—and then found a reason to take off. With all of them sitting around the clubhouse or trying to keep an eye on what might be happening with V., nobody was going to notice if he disappeared for a while, and with so many bikes off the streets it was probably a good time to go over to the apartment, despite the fact that he'd spent the night there last night. _Don't do it,_ a part of him said. _Keep it separate. What are you going to do, move in with her? Not only would it throw you off your game, but you need to give the kid a chance to heal between times._

This calm, reasonable assessment of the situation held, as usual, until his key was in the door. As it opened, she was standing there, waiting, looking down. Tig kicked the door shut behind him as Aisha dropped gracefully to her knees, still not meeting his eyes. She obviously hadn't been expecting him—not that that ever made a difference to the way she met him at the door—and she'd just gotten out of the shower. Her dark curls reached down her back now, and water dripped from them onto the floor.

She had a plain white terrycloth bathrobe wrapped around her, and it had fallen from one of her shoulders. Not roughly, but not especially gently either, he reached down and bared her other shoulder, in part to see what kind of marks he'd left on her. _Nothing that would stick around for long_, he thought, as he went down to one knee to wrap his hand around the back of her neck. Even then, he still towered over her. "Happy to see me?" he asked, pushing her down by the back of the neck until her lips were pressed against one of his boots, his hand meeting absolutely no resistance. He let her have a minute or two at that, and then abruptly stood, jerking her upward. She looked at him for a moment, pure worship in her eyes, but then quickly looked away, a holdover from when she'd been first living here and he hadn't liked her looking at him—it was just kind of uncanny the way she could stare so unblinkingly, and she was so small.

"Let me take a look at you," he said, one hand still on her neck as the other untied her robe. Naked underneath, he could immediately count both her ribs and her bruises, but he wanted to take his time with this. He dropped the robe onto the floor and held her at arm's length.

She didn't look all that different than she had four years ago, with the exception of the hair. Her face had filled out a bit (_she's started looking real pretty, _he thought with a proprietary sort of pride) but the rest of her was still slim, narrow-hipped, almost boyish. No ink, and he planned to keep it that way. He ran his hand down her collarbone and over the slight swell of her breast, pausing to catch the nipple sharply between his thumb and forefinger, and was rewarded with a low moan from her, as though she were choking back raw need. With his other hand, he cupped her chin and looked into his eyes, searching them for any of the things he'd found in other women's eyes, but hers were empty of resistance, of calculation, of distrust, even of self-consciousness. She adored him, simply, and she wanted him, completely.

Another time he might have made her wait, kept her like that while she cooked for him, served him, took care of his leather. This was a quick visit, though, and the look in her eyes had caught him off guard. Without thinking about it, he picked her up in one arm and carried her to the kitchen table, laying her down on her back as her thin, golden-brown legs twined compliantly around his back, the other hand undoing his belt as soon as he laid her down. He slowed down at that point, though, watching her some more. She wouldn't reach for him, he knew, wouldn't ask for it, but somehow there was more heat in the way her entire being was focused on holding herself back then there was in the skilled passion of the other women he'd been with. Holding her onto the table with his cock at the verge of entering her, he took his time, running his hands over her as though reassuring himself that something he owned was still in place. His fingers moved roughly over her scar, her lips, down her chest, and then both hands grasped her narrow hips as he drove himself into her.

Like always, he set the pace, but she'd match it. This time, he could tell that his unexpected appearance in the middle of the day, the few words he'd spoken to her, and the cold, examining feel of his touch had taken her completely off guard, and she was as lost in him as he was in control, watching her, marveling a little at how something so delicate could absorb the force of the thrusts he delivered with all his strength, without breaking. He knew she made it a point of pride to take everything he could give her, had seen her take blows that would have knocked a grown man to the floor at fight to stay up, to show him what she'd do for him. Taking her this time had become another version of that, trying to see how much she could handle before giving in, before her rare tears or even rarer pleading. It didn't seem like it was going to happen, her legs locked around his back and her small fingers tangled in his hair. He knew it would be over if he saw her eyes, so he held her more closely, her face buried against his shoulder, feeling her entire body shudder. _Who the fuck are you, little girl?_ he thought, surprising himself. It wasn't a question he bothered to ask, even of himself, very often.

He could feel her getting closer, her entire body turning electric and animalistic underneath him. He could feel the muscles in her thighs against his sides, her hands clenched, her teeth in his left shoulder—

_Her teeth in his left shoulder? _Barely slowing down, he pulled slightly away, just enough to look down and see her covered in sweat and bruises, lost in the feeling of him. He watched it build in her, and then at the exact moment of her climax he drove the side of his forearm into her mouth, forcing her jaw open and panic into her eyes. "What did I tell you about fucking biting me?" he snarled at her. He was still dressed, a thick shirt on under his cut, and he could barely feel anything as he drove his arm forward, her teeth caught on the outside of his arm between the wrist and elbow, her jaw forced open to its widest point. He could her choke and see tears starting, but she knew better than to fucking bite him, although she obviously needed the lesson taught to her again. He wondered in the back of his mind if she could breathe like that, but let go of the worry. He was almost finished with her; she could hold out that long. The feeling of her rigid with terror like that pushed him over the edge, and as he came he could feel something give in her jaw, heard her the first small sound of pain she'd made yet.

_Shit_, he thought as he pulled himself off of her. _That may have been a little more than she could take. _He'd managed to get away thus far without having to take her to a doctor, the limited first aid he'd picked up in the field, both when he was in the Corps and since he'd been riding with the Sons, sufficing to patch her back up when he got a little carried away. He buckled his belt and tried to get a good look. She'd pulled herself away from him slightly, still on the table, sitting on the edge with one knee pulled up to her chest. She looked up at him with a hand massaging her jaw, and when she spoke her voice was low and raspy.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He turned around and walked out, before he did something stupid like give in to the urge he'd had, all of a sudden, to lift her up into his arms and let her cry it out, holding her and taking it all away, making it all better. If he started getting into that sort of thing, for all he knew he'd be here all night.


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm really thrilled about all the positive commentary I've gotten so far. The two stories, Hidden and EOTB, are about to get really entwined, and often there might be alternating chapters--I'll try to do a recap for those who might not be reading that one exactly matched up with this._

_In "End of the Beginning," V. has been released from her interrogation by Stahl, and after running into Tig outside her apartment building on his way from seeing Aisha, she confronts him and tell him the federal agents are aware of the girl's existence and plan to bring her in for questioning._

_Chapter 5 (occurs immediately after "The End of the Beginning" chapter 25)_

Tig watched V. disappear into the building and fought the urge to just ride away and let all of this shit sort itself out. What had started out a pretty fucking nice afternoon had now officially, with the sun sinking on the horizon, turned to shit. He accelerated the bike a bit, letting the noise drown out his anger. There was business he needed to take care of. This might be the end of something, but he didn't want to think about that yet. Anyway, this wasn't his place anymore. He hadn't even like hearing V. say the kid's name, and knowing that bitch ATF agent had pictures… what kind of pictures? _Aisha walking around Charming, looking like the last thing she'd be any part of was anything to do with Sam Crow? Or one of those long-range lenses, Aisha naked on the table, his back moving over her…_

He had to make plans fast. And with some riding on the outskirts of town to clear his head, he managed to make them. Didn't much like them, but sometimes you had to play the hand you were dealt.

The first part couldn't wait—he was headed to the clubhouse, and he wasn't about to make this call from there. He pulled off the road and dialed Aisha's prepaid, hoping it still worked. The fucking thing had to be three years old—he'd never had any reason to have her use it. With relief, he heard it start to ring. _If the kid had turned it off, or stuck it someplace she couldn't hear it—made him have to ride all the way back there, with feds and whoever else following him, he was going to_—

She picked up on the second ring.

Quickly and tersely, he told her what he'd decided. "I need you to get ready to go."

There was barely a pause on the other end. "How soon?"

"Nothing's decided yet, I just want you ready to get out of the apartment the instant I tell you to." He ran down the list of things he wanted her to gather together and be ready to move, mentally inventorying the things he stored up there and winnowing it down to what he figured she could carry. She was, he knew, a fair amount stronger than she looked. He wasn't sure how he felt about telling her where everything he had in the place was stashed, until she reminded him of an AK in the kitchen that he'd forgotten was even there.

After rattling off a series of orders, he paused. This last part he didn't want to do, but it only made sense. "You've got a chick moved in upstairs. You know that?"

"Yes. I've seen her."

He took a breath. "Right. Her name's V. Listen, if something happens, I want you to go to her. At least try to get word. She's… she's Sam Crow. Sorta. She'll be able to help you."

-0-

"This story's not making any sense," Clay said, with a mixture of weariness, frustration and anger coming through his voice. He really did not need this shit right now. Money was drying up all over the place, Jax and Chibs were at each other's throats over pussy, and now the one guy he counted on to be solid, if creepy as fuck, was coming in right on heels of this thing with V. and the feds, telling him some weird story about some run five years ago, and it didn't fucking add up.

Tig said something else about not knowing if there was one body or two, but Bobby might—Clay raised his hand. "No. Right now, see, I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about. This? This story you're telling me? It doesn't make any fucking sense. Start over."

Tig took a breath. They were alone, but he still didn't want to get too loud with this. "You remember that cleanup job I needed, maybe four, five years ago? It was maybe six months after Opie went away? Up in Humboldt?"

Clay looked as though he'd like to forget. "This the two dead bodies? The whore and her pimp, tried to knock you out and rip you off?"

Tig was distracted for a minute. "Two? Yeah, I always kind of thought I'd hit her harder than I meant to." He shrugged. "Yeah, them."

Clay looked, if possible, even more annoyed. "You're reminding me of this, in the middle of all this shit, why?"

"I think that fed might have something on it."

"Stahl? What makes you think that?"

_What the fuck do I tell him? Tell him I heard it from V. and the first thing anyone'll do is question her. _"I don't know. I just do."

"You just… what the fuck does that mean you _just do? _Is this Donna again? You've got a guilt complex, maybe think someone digging up every woman you've ever killed?"

He could see Clay was starting to become furious. "Nah, nah, nothing like that, Jesus. All right, it's just, well... I took a couple of things from the house up there, some roll the dealer had on him... other stuff. And you know, I've got this place where, sometimes, I keep stuff I have from other places? You get what I'm saying here?"

Clay looked him with exaggerated politeness, his face clearly indicating that he thought Tig might have gone insane. "Please continue. You have a place where you keep things." Clay's face dawned with the horrible realization of what he thought Tig was getting at. "Oh… oh, fuck, Jesus, Tig. Oh, that is fucking disgusting! No. I refuse to hear this. I do not need this right now! Look, you do what you have to do, rent a fucking autoclave, but do not tell me you've got some fucking storage unit full of body parts. I should have figured you for a trophy collector. Jesus, you think you know a guy, maybe you know he's a sick fuck, but Jesus…"

Tig had to laugh. "Nah, nah, that's not it, it's just… some things. Nothing like that at all."

Clay paused. "You sure?"

Tig nodded. "Yeah, no, it's just a room I rent where I stash some things. Like an extra place if I need it. You know? It's just… well, I think this fed knows about it 'cause V., she rented the place upstairs. And the fed let it slip that she knew I was renting a place in the same building. So V., she decided to warn me, you know, that I was on their radar, so I could get the shit out if I needed to."

Clay nodded. This almost made sense. There was obviously a big part of the story missing somewhere, but it made some sense. "So?"

"So I might need to bring some of it here. The stuff that… I keep there."

Clay sighed. "That's it?"

"That's it."

"And there's no, I don't know, no fucking fingers and ears and shit like that?"

"Nothing like that." And then, unable to resist, he added, with mock sadness, "that collection had gotten too big by high school. I hated to see it go, but I had to sell it all off. You''d be surprised the kind of market—"

Clay held up his hand. "Okay, get the fuck out of here. Get what you have to get, bring it here, but we are going to have a talk about _when_ V. might have shared this information with you, because it's _my_ understanding from Unsler that she was barely released an hour ago. And like I keep trying to tell you, I do not need one more problem today."


	6. Chapter 6

_A one-shot interlude: the continuing story as told from V.'s point of view. A visit from Aisha raises more questions for V. than it answers._

Chapter 6

After the conversation with Tig, V. kept her eye out for the girl, but she didn't notice her entering or leaving the building, and downstairs everything stayed dark and quiet. _Maybe,_ she thought, _he moved her somewhere else when I told him about Stahl. That, or just told her to get out. Who knows with him?_

A few days later, though, at about six o'clock, there was a short knock at her door, and when she opened it, the girl was standing there, her dark curly hair tied into a yellow kerchief and a cardboard box in her arms. "I was wondering if you could use a few things?" she said, smiling, and stunned at the absolute ordinariness of both the girl's appearance and the open friendliness on her face, V. found herself unable to think of anything to say as she stepped aside and let Aisha into the apartment.

Up close, Aisha was even smaller that V. had pictured, but looked a fair amount less childlike. She wore a long, sleeveless white sundress with a tightly fitted bodice and long, flowing skirt, and a pair of simple brown leather sandals. She walked into V.'s apartment, seeming to know exactly where she was going, and set the box on the small kitchen counter, then turned around and smiled. "It's exactly like ours!" she said. "I feel like I know where everything is."

There was something surreal about this experience. Needing a minute to process it, V. leaned on the edge of the table and lit a cigarette. Nothing in her experience with the club--or anywhere else for that matter--had given her any idea how to respond to this friendly-neighbors routine, and she wasn't quite sure what her next line was supposed to be. The only thing that kept it from being completely uncomfortable was her suspicion that Aisha was faking the interaction almost entirely. Anyone who lived closely enough with Tig Trager to have a place she referred to as "ours" did not just step out of the fucking Donna Reed show. _ I don't buy this for a second_, thought V. _It's an act. _ _It's well-chosen and well-played, but she's not quite old enough to be convincing._ V. decided it was time to stop this game in its tracks--she didn't know how to play, and wasn't about to be put at a disadvantage.

"How about you tell me why you're here," she said coldly, smoking her cigarette and fixing her eyes on Aisha.

Aisha didn't seem terribly concerned, but nodded and a bit of the cloying sweetness dropped out of her voice. "He told me to come to you if things weren't looking good," she said. "Told me you were Sam Crow and I should trust you."

"He did?" V. found herself wondering for a split second if the girl were lying. Of everyone connected with the club, Tig was the last one she could see giving her that designation. Well, OK, Gemma was the _last_ one, but Tig was right behind her. "And are they?" she asked. "Not looking good, that is."

Aisha sort of shrugged on shoulder and gave V. a slight smile. "I don't really know that I'd know how to judge that," she said. "but I've been doing some de-cluttering, just the same." She gestured to the box on the counter. "I thought since you'd just moved in, there might be a few things you'd want to have up here." She reached into the box, and V. found herself wondering what on earth those two might keep in that apartment that they wouldn't want the feds to find. Expecting either guns or money, she was surprised when the first thing Aisha pulled out of the box was a small seedling tray, full of tiny barely-sprouted plants.

"What the hell_ is _that?"

Aisha set it down, looked it it and sighed. "It's an herb garden. I mean... well... it was going to be one."

At this point, V. decided she was just going to go with it, and figure it all out later. Over the next 15 minutes, Aisha removed from box an assortment of items including a small jar of seashells and beach glass, one of those things you used to set hot pots onto a table (_a trivet_, thought V., pulling the word up from somewhere in her childhood, _they call that thing a trivet_), a french press coffee maker, some pots and pans, a stack of dishtowels, and several boxes of herbal tea. "You don't cook much," Aisha stated, without the slightest question in her voice. "Why don't I make us some tea, and I can let you know where we'll be leaving the keys in case we go away suddenly." She ran some water into the smallest of the pots and set it to boil on V's stove. "Oh, and there's one more thing."

She set the box onto the floor and reached into it for what seemed like a folded bundle of cloth, which she set on the counter neatly, in front of the boxes of tea that had been lined up precisely, labels outward. "He told me you're Sam Crow," she said. This time, it was a question.

V. wasn't sure if she should qualify that. _Only in the most peripheral of ways, kid, _she thought. _As a fighter and whore,_ she reminded herself. _This doesn't mean any of them have accepted you--he probably only sent her to you because you're an outsider, and he doesn't want her mixed in with club business._ She realized Aisha was standing still, looking at her searchingly, her hand on the bundle of cloth. V. cleared her throat. "That's right," she said.

Aisha nodded. "I have to ask you to do something for me. And before I do, I want to ask you something else, okay?"

V. nodded. _Please don't tell me they have a cat or something,_ she thought.

Aisha looked around. "You need to understand that I would never do anything to betray, threaten or hurt him," she said. V. could suddenly hear the utter seriousness in her tone. " I need to know if you believe that, and if you don't, I need to know if there's anything I can do to make it clear to you."

"I do believe it," said V. Strangely, she did. Although they were as different as night and day, V. recognized something in Aisha's tone that reminded her of Gemma's voice, telling her that Jax and Abel were all that mattered to her. It different, maybe--there was more reverence that protectiveness to it--but the absolute commitment was the same. "I don't need you to prove it to me, I can tell that it's true."

Aisha nodded again. "Thank you," she said simply. "I'd like you to keep a couple of other things. All of this..." she gestured to the french press and other things, "I don't think I'm going to need. They're yours. Keep them, get rid of them, whatever. But I'd like you to keep something else, something that's mine, and if I ask for it back--and I won't, unless I really need to--if I ask for it back," she stopped, and started to turn the bundle of cloth around in her hands. "Well, I'd need you to give it back to me. And not mention it. To anybody. To _anybody_." Without meeting V's eyes, Aisha opened up the bundle, and V could see that it was a long-sleeved thermal shirt, none too clean-looking. One sleeve was covered in dark stains. Aisha lay the shirt out flat, revealing its contents: a small stack of cash, with the same dark stains (that's old blood, thought V., really old), and a small black automatic pistol.

Only someone as practiced at avoiding questions as V. could have seen at a glance that despite how frail and downright girly Aisha seemed, she wasn't going to give up one more piece of information than she had to--and that if V. pushed it, that would be the end. She also noticed how little was actually being said aloud, and how Aisha had laid the items out on the counter, but hadn't yet referred to them. _She's not stupid,_ thought V., almost with surprise. _He told her about the feds, and she isn't going to say anything that might sound interesting if the place is bugged._ "I could do that," V. said carefully. "You'd need to wait a week or so to bring anything by, though." She smiled at Aisha as she spoke, and Aisha smiled back, nodded again, and then turned to the counter and began expertly to disassemble the gun.

"So," Aisha said cheerily as she removed the pistol's clip. V. noted that it was unloaded. "is chamomile all right? I'm afraid I don't have anything with caffeine, it gives me trouble sleeping." She placed the small pot of boiling water on the trivet in front of her, and began holding each piece of the gun over the steam as it rose, polishing it neatly with one of the dishtowels she'd brought, and setting it aside. She looked up at V questioningly. "I have peppermint, if that's better."

V. found her voice. "Either's fine," she said, fighting the urge to burst into laughter as Aisha paused in her task to pour some of the water over a chamomile teabag into one of the cups she'd brought. When the strangely finicky gun-polishing was finished, the pistol lay in pieces on another dishtowel, looking pretty well shined up. Aisha handed her the cup, and poured one for herself.

"I'd come out of a pretty rough situation when I ended up down here with him," she said. "I don't know if he told you that, or if he ever would. I lived with my mom, she was into the crank pretty heavy, had some trouble paying the bills and her dealer was working it out the _usual_ way, you know?"

V. nodded. This was the sort of story that was familiar to her. It was hard for her to connect it with Aisha, though. Despite some bruising and that one strange little scar, the girl didn't seem as though she'd ever known trouble. _Bullshit,_ she reminded herself. _She goes to bed with trouble, wakes up with trouble, polishes trouble's fucking leather. Where do you think she came from, finishing school?_

"So," Aisha continued, "it was kind of a matter of time for me, you know? A lot more money to be made from me than her. And it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not." She turned back to the counter, and began very deliberately, slowly and methodically putting the gun back together. She touched each piece carefully, turning it around in her hands, as it were a puzzle she wanted to make sure she got right. Turning back to V., she shrugged, and smiled again. "I was terrified, living up there. And one night, you know--things got kind of bad." She looked up at V. "And that's how I ended up down here. In Charming. And I've been living here ever since. He takes care of me. Nothing lasts forever, you know. But it's been a really good run." Having finished re-assembling the gun, she began deftly straightening up V.'s kitchen, rinsing the teacups, and finally placed the gun and money back into the shirt and wrapped it up again. "You don't have any large freezer bags, do you?" she asked V.

Miraculously, the last tenant had left some in the cabinet above the refrigerator. Aisha managed to fit the bundled shirt and its contents into the bag, then handed it to V. "Thanks," she said. She smiled at V. "I'm sure I'll see you."

She left as easily as she'd come in, sparing a quick glance at the things she'd left behind.


	7. Chapter 7

_This thing actually does have a plot, as the last couple of chapters would indicate, but we're moving back into flashback-land to give it a little time to develop. I'd really love feedback on what you'd like to see in future chapters, guys! And thanks for all the positive reviews, it really means a lot._

Chapter 7

Aisha walked the two flights back down from V's apartment, but didn't unlock her door. Instead, she sat for a moment on the bottom step, leaning her forehead against the wall. Despite what she'd said to V., she really wasn't ready to see this run be over yet—and looking at the apartment in its ready-to-go state just made it that much more real. _This might be nothing,_ she thought. There had been other times when there'd been some interest from law enforcement—he didn't talk about it and she didn't ask, but enough things found their way through the apartment on the way out that she had a fair idea of what he might be into. None of it scared her nearly as much as what she'd set in motion today.

He'd been gone longer than this. Over a month, once. She never got used to it, thought, and wondered each time he left if that might not be it. This time, it seemed like it really could be. She'd been thinking lately about how it would be five years soon, and had somehow had a feeling that things weren't going to continue this way for that long, like it wasn't possible for something like this to just keep on going.

OK, what if he didn't come back? What then?

Logistics were the first thing that came to her mind—looking over at the two carefully-packed black duffel bags filled with the things she'd asked for, she figured she'd just take them upstairs, leave them with V. Or should she try to take them over to the club? She chewed her thumbnail nervously, then realized what she was doing and put her hands behind her back. _Stop that_, she said to herself. _You look like a kid. Ask V, He told you to go to her, so if he doesn't come back after… a while?... you can just go upstairs and ask her._ She wondered if she was making excuses—she'd do just about anything to avoid going to the club—but decided that that was what he'd want.

_All right, _she though, _what then? _She guessed she'd have to leave, and quickly inventoried in her head what she'd be able to take with her. A few clothes. The bundle she'd left up at V.'s. That was about it. She didn't want to take any of his money, anything that belonged to him. Thinking about it like that made it all seem unthinkable. Wasn't she something that belonged to him? How could she just _go_? Could she do that? Her finger reached up and traced her scar again. Yeah, she could. If he wanted her to, she could.

-0-

By this time of night, when the party was winding down, he'd planned to be either dead drunk, in the ring, or with one or more of the girls that had been surrounding him, and hopefully to have made all three happen as close to simultaneously as possible. Instead, he'd sat and watched, keeping the rest of them at a distance. He'd seen Jax look at him a few times, and Clay had come up to him around the middle of the evening and ask if he was all right, but the rest of them were keeping a distance. Particularly Chibs, whose occasional glares Tig couldn't bother to try to interpret right now.

It wasn't so much that things had changed, just that the longer he spent away the more he wondered what it looked like over there now. He had an image in his mind of his apartment, dark, and Aisha sitting against the wall next to the window, gun cocked in her hand, just still and listening, the way she always was. Somewhere he had the idea that if he could just get someplace quiet, he might be able to hear himself think, and when he got like this sometimes that apartment seemed like the only quiet place in Charming.

Never much of a talker, after she'd approached him and he'd rejected her, she'd stopped speaking almost entirely.

Somehow, this didn't make things any calmer. The opposite, if anything. That was part of why he'd started hurting her: it wasn't something he did out of a sense of being carried away, but was more a chance to figure out her responses, see what was really going on behind all this silence. He'd have expected fear, maybe, or attempts to avoid, to placate or mollify him. Even the ones who liked it weren't the same way about it as she was—he'd been with a few dozen kinky bitches over the years, and the ones who were into it while you were hitting them, they usually tried to do something or say something to let him know they were really the ones in control, to let him know that he was doing exactly what they needed and wanted.

She didn't do that. The first time he came back to the apartment after the night she'd tried to get close to him, there wasn't much there but shame and terror, and he tried to remind himself that she was just a kid. He saw her grow still and as he let himself into the apartment, looking down and backing away until her back was pressed against the wall. He'd gone straight up to her, then, something he hadn't done very often-he tended to act like she was part of the furnishings of the place and not noticing her until he needed something. This time, he walked straight to her and put one hand flat against the wall next to her head. Leaning forward, he took hold of her chin with his other hand. She let him lift her chin—there was no resistance whatsoever—but she kept her eyes down. He studied her, turning her face from one side to the other. The entire time, he could feel the forced calm in her, could sense that for all it cost her to do it, keeping still for him was the most important thing in the world to her.

"Happy to see me?" he asked, words which over the next few years would become his habitual greeting. He took a step back and a long, slow look at her. As though she could feel it, Aisha seemed to shiver under his eyes. She didn't look like she was expecting him, and was barefoot, in jeans and a plain black t-shirt, her hair curling almost to her shoulders and her pulse fluttering in her neck.

That was the first time he realized the thing that he was feeling—the first time that the urge named itself and became the need to hurt her. It wasn't that he wanted to see her in pain, exactly, it was just the need to know what it would look like. If this—just his looking at her—cut her this deeply, what would happen if he touched her? If he made her scream?

As usual, with Tig, impulse became action before even really materializing as thought. In one move, he had his hand wrapped into the back of her hair and had jerked her off her feet. She stumbled a little—she hadn't been expecting it—but he could feel her correct her balance even as she was going down, as usual trying to follow and do exactly what he wanted. That first time, he just held her there, dropping to one knee to keep her pinned to the floor by the back of her hair. She'd closed her eyes, the only sound her slightly ragged breathing. Almost experimentally, he tightened his fist in her hair, pushing her harder against the floor. Her breathing became a sudden gasp that caught in the back of her throat as she seemed, despite his keeping her entirely immobilized, to move back towards his hand, to offer him even more.

There was a small strip of her back showing, between her jeans and shirt that had been pushed up when he shoved her onto the floor. In the absolute stillness of that moment, he reached out and ran his finger along her exposed back. Her teeth found her bottom lip, and she bit back a low moan. _You need to stop this, now_, he suddenly thought, and let her go.

She opened her eyes quickly, but he was already across the room, and by the time she got to her feet he was sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, lighting a cigarette without looking at her. A quick jerk of his head towards the apartment's tiny kitchen let her know that he wanted something to eat; the fact that he told her without speaking meant that he wanted her to stay quiet. Something _had_ changed, though... it was the fact that while all of this was going on, another part of him seemed to be standing outside of it, watching the language they'd developed, weighing and evaluating. He couldn't say he knew exactly what was going on here, but he knew that he wanted to see where this led. He wasn't going to start fucking the kid, though, that was for damn sure. There was no reason to confuse this with anything other than what it was.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

Tig briefly considered telling sending one of the girls at the party for another beer, but that would require talking to one of them, or worse, giving the impression he was making a choice for the evening. Usually, he liked variety. The difference between these girls and Aisha just made each encounter that much more interesting. It was different when didn't have a choice, though. Fucking one of these Crow Eaters would just make it that much more clear that it wasn't that he was choosing not to be at the apartment with Aisha—it was that for reasons beyond his control, he couldn't have her right then, even if he wanted her. And that, honestly, was not the way things were supposed to go down with Aisha.

He got to his feet and made it over to the beer fridge, surprised to see Gemma still there, with a vigilant eye on Jax and Chibs who were still tensely circling each other. When she saw him, she handed him a freshly-opened beer. "You're going to bring the whole party down, looking like that," she observed.

He looked away. "Yeah," he agreed. "No. I don't know. Shitty fucking week, nothing but drama."

Gemma snorted. "You know, we count on you to be the one not caught up in all that shit."

He nodded.

She rolled her eyes a bit. "Just bring her here, Tigger, if you're that worried. We'll keep her out of Stahl's evil clutches; I'll make it right with Clay." She smiled. "I don't know much about her but she can't be more trouble than the lunatic we've had for the past couple of months, right?"

Tig turned to look at her. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said slowly.

Gemma gave him a cheerful smirk. "Sure you don't. Woman you visit, same building as V. just moved to, little thing, maybe Mexican? I've seen her around. Likes to shop at the healthfood store. Wears those big sunglasses, couldn't tell what she looked like all that well-" Gemma broke off laughing as Tig seemed more and more discomfited with everything she said. "Nobody else knows, calm down," she smiled. "But I figured that's what you meant when you asked Clay for storage space.."

He looked away from her, confirming her suggestion without actually saying yes.

She came closer to him and lowered her voice a bit. "Look. One of you disappears someplace every few days or so? It's a good idea to know where that is. Especially with everything that's been going on. It wasn't club business, so I kept it to myself." She shrugged. "With Stahl up to her old tricks, pulling in any chick who fucks a Son, bringing her here or having her leave town might be the best thing. And if you were willing to have her leave town, well..." she smiled at him, "you'd have done it already."

He finished his beer and nodded, clearing his throat. "I'll go get her."

-0-

Of course someone noticed, he thought. He'd been visiting the kid a few times a week on the regular for almost five years. He wondered when she'd picked up on it... probably right around that time when things had started to change between him and Aisha. He'd started making up reasons to be there damn near everyday, careful to make sure it didn't start bleeding over into his daily life and the club.

He'd made that resolution not to start fucking her, but what the hell were you supposed to do when you were that up close and personal with someone who wanted you that much?

There were times he'd barely be in the door before he'd have knocked her halfway across the room, pausing to watch her struggle not to back away from him and bracing for the next one. He'd spend his days at the garage or on runs with Clay thinking about what he was going to do to her, and when he got back to the clubhouse at night he'd let the first Crow Eater he could find take on all his pent-up energy. After he cracked a couple Aisha's ribs for the first time, he'd realized that this was probably going to end badly sooner rather than later.

Shit, he thought immediately after it happened. I'm going to have to bring her in for this. The thought suddenly brought him back to reality and urgency suddenly flooded in as he noticed how cold she was, how she was shaking. Fuck. She was going into shock. He tried to gather her up and she screamed. He remembered her ribs, and felt himself starting to panic. There was no way he could move her.

He saw her eyes start to close, and grabbed her chin. "Wake up," he said. "Stay with me." He made up his mind, and with his other hand he flipped open his cell, starting to dial. Her eyes fluttered open.

"No," she said. She made an ineffectual move towards him, and it took him a moment to realize that she'd tried to knock the phone out of his hand. "No," she said again. _All right_, he thought, _that's pretty fucking clear_. He knew why she was trying to stop him, and he'd deal with it himself.

Aisha didn't remember a great deal except wondering why he was putting all those pillows and blankets around her, and talking to her, and making her answer, and not letting her sleep. At a certain point he started making her cough, which hurt like hell, and then he told her she was going to be fine. For some reason, that made her remember that maybe she didn't like him that much right now, and maybe she just wanted to deal with this alone. She thought she tried to tell him that, and he said too bad, he wasn't going anywhere. "You'll be ok, kid," he said. "I might have, ah, gotten ahead of myself, but this is not the worst beating anyone's ever taken, and you'll be fine. I'm not leaving, though."

He stayed until she was stabilized, got her warm again, then realized there wasn't really any walking out with her in this condition. When she woke up a few hours later—he'd finally let her go to sleep—she noticed him sleeping next to her on the floor even before it hit her that her ribs were probably broken.

He spent five days in the apartment that time, telling the guys he had to leave town for a bit.

After she healed there was something there they'd both rather keep unspoken, something between them that said they had a deal. She was there because she wanted to be, and she whatever happened she wasn't going to tell anyone what happened there. However badly he hurt her. And if it got to be too bad, he'd stay there and take care of it. The night before he left, she'd turned toward him, careful even in sleep of her bandaged ribs, and he'd traced a finger down the side of her face and watched her. When she opened her eyes, he kissed her.

She kissed back hungrily but inexpertly, as though she were trying to follow his lead. When he broke it off and looked down at her, her eyes were still closed. "Please," she said softly but desperately. "Oh, please, won't you?" She opened her eyes and they looked at each other, as he waited, not saying no, to see what she would do. God knows, he wanted to, and he figured he might as well just go with it. It had started to seem inevitable. _If you're going to bang a chick with a couple of cracked ribs, though,_ he thought, _be nice for once and let her set the pace._

She kept looking at him, visible nervousness starting to war with the desire on her face. She looked at him like she wasn't quite sure what to do next. He looked at her curiously for another minute, something he hadn't really thought about crossing his mind for the first time. He smiled. "Go to sleep, kid," he said, unable to keep himself from jostling her a bit in the ribs to hear her sharp intake of breath. "It's late."

The next morning, after making sure she could get around all right on her own, he was gone. He needed a little time to think about all of this, but they were going to have a _talk_ when he got back. There was something he wanted to know.


	9. Chapter 9

_Thanks for all the feedback. This is probably the most intense of the sex chapters yet, so if you enjoy the story but are squicked by the Tig/Aisha dynamic, you can skip this one and not miss any plot. If the dynamic's the reason you're reading, though, I hope you like this one._

Chapter 9:

He waited a while before he went to see her again. _Give her some time to heal,_ he thought. Ever since the time he'd spent there, he'd been wondering about a few things, thinking about how little he knew about her life before she'd hitched a ride down here with him. Come to think of it, he didn't know much about her life now. Did she get bored when he wasn't there? He knew she didn't go out much, would if she had to, but was just as happy staying inside. She'd started doing little things to the place. He didn't mind. Although sometimes he'd take her with him, down to the coast or just riding to ride, he liked the fact that she was someplace he could always find her.

She seemed pretty well patched up when he came by. As usual, he took a fistful of her hair and asked if she was happy to see him, and she seemed desperately to want to look into his eyes but kept her own downwards. When he forced her to her knees, he kept her there for the rest of the evening, one boot resting on her shoulder as he ate dinner. When he lit a cigar afterwards, he snapped his fingers and beckoned her towards him, looking down into her face. "You asked me for something the last time I was here," he said in a calm, friendly tone.

She tried to look away. He made a fist and gently tapped her cheekbone as he spoke. "I am _fucking talking to you_. You'd better answer me."

She nodded, looking sick with nervousness.

He smiled. "Good. See that? We're having a conversation." He let his smile fade as he stared down into her eyes. "I felt bad about what happened to you, you know. That you got hurt. I kissed you." He shook his head. "And you wanted to turn it into something more than that."

She nodded again. He noticed that she'd gone absolutely pale, and couldn't help enjoying it. "I thought we had a conversation about that," he said softly. He stood up. "Stay there," he said, getting up and going into their bathroom and bringing back several items, which he laid out on the table in a neat row. When she saw what they were, she started shaking. "Shhhh," he said, patting her hair absently. Then he snapped his fingers again. "Up," he said, and she stood in front of him, trying not to back away.

He didn't look at her, but took his time, enjoying her terror. "See, I've started thinking that maybe you and me, our problem is that we don't talk enough," he said. "I thought I made myself clear the first time, but maybe you didn't hear me." He didn't look at any of thing he'd set down, or make any reference to them, as he talked to her. "I want to ask you some questions. And you're going to answer me, and I'm not going to have to ask any of them twice, am I?"

She bit her lip and shook her head. He watched her standing in front of him, and suddenly stood up himself, putting one hand onto the back of her neck. "You know, I thought we were having a conversation here," he said. "But I'm still not hearing your voice." He pulled her off-balance, pushing her face-first onto the table. "I guess we can do it this way," he said, pulling off his belt with the other hand. "Stay still. Remember, I want to hear you."

He let go of her neck and stepped back. She didn't move from where he'd placed her. The first strike with the belt caught her across the backs of her thighs and she cried out involuntarily. "You're going to answer all of my questions, right?" The second strike was slightly lower, closer to the backs of her knees, and he could see her support her weight on the table as her legs gave out for a moment. "Yes!" she said out loud, and he could see the tears starting, see her desperately trying to blink them away before he noticed.

Her dress buttoned down the back, he saw, and smiled. He picked up the straight razor he'd laid on the table, making sure she saw him do it. He heard her gasp and noticed with satisfaction that she wasn't doing such a hot job of keeping those tears hidden. "Scared?"

"Yes!"

"That's probably smart," he said. He looked at the razor in his hand, then smiled, and carefully laid it on the back of her neck where it met her shoulders. "Don't move," he said conversationally. "If it falls, I'll use it." Calmly but quickly, he unbuttoned the back of her dress, one of those light sundresses she liked to wear, then slipped the straps off her shoulders. The dress was still pressed between her and the table and didn't fall to the floor, but it wasn't covering anything anymore. It wasn't like he'd never seen her like this—it wasn't, for instance, the first time he'd used that belt on her—but generally he was all business. This time he was savoring it, actually taking the time to step back and look at her. He picked up the razor. "Stand up," he said. She turned to face him, letting the dress fall to the floor.

It was harder than he'd anticipated to take his time, not to just decide all these careful plans didn't matter and throw her down right there. Instead, he gave her a long, slow, appraising look. She was still too thin, and not the type that he usually went for, but he also had to admit that she looked a lot better than most of the girls at the clubhouse did under their makeup. She still looked like a kid, though. He closed the distance between them and opened the razor again, holding it to her throat.

"Now we're going to talk some more," he said, " and I want you to tell me the truth."

"I always tell you the truth," she said, keeping her eyes open this time, even as she felt the razor press into her skin. Standing next to her like this, she barely came up to his shoulder, and he could feel her against him. Suddenly he realized that wanted her completely naked, and reached down to hook his thumb into the fabric of her panties, slicing though first one side than the other with his straight razor and dropping them onto the floor. She was barefoot, not wearing a bra, so was now entirely exposed. He took another long, slow look at her, then returned the razor to her throat. "I need to know something, Aisha," he said. It was the first time he'd used her name in conversation, and her eyes widened. "You ever have anyone over her when I'm not here?"

She actually looked angry enough at that she'd forgotten the razor to her throat, and gave him a look that in anyone else might have made him step back. "Fuck, no. It's _your _place." She narrowed her eyes. "I wouldn't let anyone in here you hadn't told me about in advance. What the hell is this about?"

"Where do you go when I'm not here?"

She looked confused, less angry. "Well, not many places. I mean, Main street. I shop for food, I've taken the bus over to the mall a couple of times... I went to a movie once. I dont—I don't really like going out." She looked nervous again. "I don't want to leave. I like it here. I'm sorry if I—I won't—"

He shushed her. "Calm down. I'm just trying to find out about you." He pressed the razor harder against her throat, saw goosebumps rise on her arms. That had to hurt, but he was reasonably sure it wouldn't actually cut her, under a slow, steady pressure like that, it was made for slicing. Reasonably sure... it _was_ fairly sharp. "So before you came down here, when you were up in Homboldt, how many guys did you fuck, Aisha?"

She drew in her breath sharply, and he could sense that she was blushing. It was hard to tell under her olive-toned skin, but a flush was visible on the paler skin of her breasts and throat. She didn't say anything, but he decided to let it go this time. He had his answer.

"Nobody?" She shook her head. He moved closer to her. "Not your mom's boyfriend? Some kid you went to high school with? Nobody?"

Her voice cracked when she spoke. "No."

He couldn't keep himself from smiling. He'd had a really strong suspicion about this, after the other night, but wanted to be sure. He continued in an almost jovial tone. "Did other things? Ever suck a dick? Nothing?"

"Nothing."

He thought about this for a minute, letting the razor play against her cheek, gently. "That's pretty interesting," he said. "Stayed away from that sort of thing because it scared you?"

The razor away from her throat, she nodded, eyes closed again.

"Maybe the other night, that was maybe even the first time anyone's ever kissed you?"

She nodded again, and he let go of her. There had been a plan for this—there were other things he was going to do or say if his suspicions had turned out to be true. Most importantly, he was absolutely going to make her wait. If this was this big a deal to her, he could string her out for months with it. Maybe let her a little closer every so often. Make her wonder if he'd ever-

_Fuck it, _ he thought, his usual impulsiveness reasserting itself as he swung her around, hand on the back of her next, pulling her across the room and pushing her face-down onto the bed. He remembered that he'd wanted to draw this out, make her beg, do it slow... well, that part wasn't exactly going according to plan. As he drove himself into her her and heard her scream he realized that he hadn't even taken off his cut.


	10. Chapter 10

_Last chapter of flashback, then we'll move back into the present and catch up with the events in End of the Beginning. _

Chapter 10:

_You know, _he thought later that night, _ I've got to admit I could seriously get used to watching this girl sleep after I've roughed her up a bit._

It was the second time he'd found himself enjoying that—the first time being the night after she went into shock, when he'd caught himself looking at her, tracing his finger down the side of her cheek. This time, when he did the same thing, he ran his finger across the bloodstained gauze taped onto her cheekbone and in her sleep she flinched slightly, and almost made a sound. Her hair, always slightly disheveled, was a cascade of tangles, and her lower lip was bruised from where he'd slowly bitten her, the second time he'd taken her.

He'd been able to take things a bit more slowly the second time, after he'd pulled his clothes off and left them by the side of the bed, had her make some coffee, smoked a cigarette. Then he'd pulled her back into the bed, underneath him, and smiled at her. "Hi," he said, taking her wrist in one hand and holding the cigarette on the tender skin inside her elbow. She screamed again. He smiled. "I've decided I like it when you scream," he said. "You do it real nice. Not too loud. Just loud enough." He kissed her on the forehead, and held the cigarette to her skin again, on the inside of her upper arm this time. This time when she cried out, she moved against him involuntarily, then stopped as though she'd caught herself.

"Shhh..." he said. "It's fine. This is what you want?" He put the cigarette out in the ashtray next to the bed, still holding both her wrists in one hand, and then grabbed onto the back of her left knee, pulling her towards him. She was one of the smallest women he'd ever fucked, or close to it, and he let her wrist go and took her hips with both hands as he started to push himself into her again, then stopped. "Tell me," he said. "You want this?"

"Yes," she said. "Please." She left her wrists where he put them, and as he pushed the rest of the way into her and she gasped, he could see the burns he'd left against her skin. _Don't want to mark her up too much, _he thought. _Then again... _ he gave himself over to slowly fucking her for a few minutes, watching the way she responded and bringing her closer until she was almost there. When he felt her legs tighten around him and heard her cry out, he stopped again.

"No," he said. "Not until I tell you. Never until I tell you." She looked confused, and he looked down at her, running one hand down her throat, down to her breasts, gently brushing his fingers across one of her nipples as he began to move again. She was even closer this time, her breathing ragged and her hands clutching at his shoulders. "Good," he said, "get closer. Closer." He stopped again. "No."

This time, her moan held an edge of desperation. When he started moving again, he had reached down to the side of the bed, and held the straight razor in his hand. "I think you want to do what I tell you," he said. He brought the razor next to her face, but kept going, letting her feel the fear along with her need. When he stopped for a third time, he had the razor pressed against her temple.

"I want to give you something to remember this by," he said softly. "I figure this is a pretty important day for you. I don't want you to ever forget who did this to you, you understand?"

He felt her go absolutely still, tensing underneath him. She didn't pull away, but looked at him pleadingly. He knew she wasn't even sure what she wanted to beg him for at this point, whether she wanted him to stop or anything but.

Much later, he had to admit that the moment he'd sliced the razor into her cheek, then the second cut, connecting the two lines of his initial, and her scream, then her second, most anguished and drawn-out scream as the salt from her tears trailed into the two fresh cuts he'd made on her cheek, or the way her screams changed as he started moving again, pounding her furiously until he whispered "now" into her ear and felt her tense underneath him, clutching at him and sinking her teeth into his shoulder as she came—well, that was pretty much as good as it got.

Except for the biting thing... but he could teach her not to do that, next time.

He'd dropped the razor then and kissed her, biting her lip as hard as she had his shoulder. She was going to wake up pretty sore, in a few different ways. As he looked at her, he felt sleep starting to overtake him, and shook himself awake, sitting up on the edge of the bed. She didn't move as he pulled his jeans on and the rest of his clothes, quickly drank the last of the coffee that had grown cold, and grabbed his keys. It wasn't that he didn't want to stay, but he had to make sure she didn't start taking things for granted—he didn't particularly want anything between them to change because of what had happened.

-0-

_Things are going to fucking change now, _he thought. How the hell was he going to fit Aisha in at the clubhouse? Was this really a good idea? There really wasn't anyplace else to bring her, though. Besides, yeah, he'd admit it... he missed her.


	11. Chapter 11

_Flashbacks over, we are back on track with anfield's story. This takes place immediately after Chapter 29-the party where V is pounding the tequila is the same party Tig leaves to go get Aisha. _

Chapter 11

At first he thought she wasn't there when he let himself in. The place looked stripped-down, made into what he always said it was, a place to store things. The bed was bare and the kitchen looked somehow dismantled. On the far side of the room were the two black duffle bags he'd told her to pack, and then he noticed that she was curled between them, sleeping. Her dark curls covered her face, and she'd curled up into a ball, back in her t-shirt and jeans, barefoot. Between two bags of guns. It was probably the cutest thing he'd ever seen in his life.

He'd called her 8 days before, and she probably hadn't turned a light on in that entire time. He wondered briefly if V was home, upstairs, and if so how much she might be able to hear. Remembering he'd seen her back at the party knocking back tequila with Juice and Half-Sack, he kicked Aisha awake, maybe bit more gently than usual. A bit.

She opened her eyes and smiled. "Happy to see me?" he asked her. She nodded immediately, and struggled to her feet, waiting until he put his hand around her waist before she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him. "You have absolutely no idea," she said.

As she got him a beer (he noticed when she opened it that she'd gotten rid of the light bulb in the refrigerator. He'd told her to keep the place looking deserted in case anyone was watching, apparently she didn't fuck aroudn with that), he told her about the plan, and she listened carefully. When he told he he'd be taking her over to the clubhouse, she looked panicked. "I really have to go there?"

"Yeah. What's the problem?" He could think of three or four problems he had with the whole idea, but he'd never been sure where her fear of the whole thing came from.

She shrugged. "Guess I don't really, um... like bikers all that much."

He blinked at her. "That's the most batshit crazy thing I've ever heard you say. And you once asked me to cut your arm open with a piece of broken glass."

"I don't!"

"You like me!"

"That's _different._"

"They're really good guys."

She looked dubious. "Really?"

He nodded. "Really. They are." He took a long drink of his beer. "Now, a couple of ground rules, I guess. I don't want you talking to anyone, letting anyone take you anyplace alone, getting on anyone's fucking _bike_, or leaving the place. Oh, and stay away from the girls that hang out around there. I don't want you talking to them." He drank again. "Everyone's really great, though, trust me, you'll see."

-0-

V kept her eyes away from Jax's and concentrated on the muffins when he came into the room. _It's bad enough how much they know already about my business,_she thought. Hopefully, everyone had been too lit the night before to notice her slipping up to his room. However, when she saw Gemma blowing on her cup of coffee and regarding V. with narrowed eyes, she knew that at least one person knew exactly what was up. Fuck. Chibs was supposed to be back today. How the hell was she going to play this? She could tell that in some strange way, the little triangle they had going on, as much as it was emphatically not the way things were done around here, was starting to become just the way things were, even a family joke of sorts. Part of her didn't mind that so much—it felt like she'd finally managed to convince them that she could do what she wanted, that she wasn't going to be forced into either of the two roles they held open for women in this club—but part of her thought that it might not be a good idea to get a name as the source of discord and drama in the club.

Gemma eyed her suspiciously. "Didn't make it home last night?"

V shurgged. "Didn't want to drive," she said noncommittally. Given that she was so hungover she could barely lift her head, it wasn't a story anyone was likely to question. Jax had just come out of the shower and was freshly dressed, still rubbing his hair on a hand towel. She felt the makeup from the night before on her face, and wished she still had some things here. It would make mornings like this a lot easier, not that anyone was particularly looking their best right now. _Oh, fuck it, _she thought._ It's not like I should really be planning to make a habit of this._

V heard the door open, and turned around quickly expecting to see Chibs. Instead, Tig walked in, followed by Aisha, who walked a few steps behind him. They both carried black duffel bags, and she staggered slightly from the weight of hers.

_Shi_t, thought V. _He's __bringing her here? What would be so hard about just getting her out of Charming for a while until this shit with Stahl cools off? _She tried to read Aisha's face, but as usual when Tig was around she was too focused to see much of anything besides him in her eyes, and looking at her all you got was the sense that her attention was caught and held by her need to hit the mark, precisely, with him. Every time. _She's got to be scared to death to be here, _V thought, _but you wouldn't know it to look at her_.

Clay had wandered into the room at about the same moment, and took in the situation at a glance. _I guess I should have seen this coming, _thought Clay. _Well, shit._ He could already feel some seriously bad vibes coming off Gemma, and decided to stick around in case things got... complicated. "'Morning," he offered to Tig. "We were actually just getting most of the guest to clear out of here right about now. Family only." He looked at the girl, smiled. "You understand."

Tig swung his duffel bag down with a metallic clanking noise, seeming not to have heard Clay. "So I've got an apartment over on the West side," he said without preamble. "Did, at least, until a certain crazy bitch we all know and love decided to move in upstairs." V felt her temper rising, despite the fact that she could see him smiling. She did not need Tig deciding that it was his mission to start making fun of her on a regular basis. "Fuck you," she replied in a cheerful tone. "I'm supposed to check with you where I can live, now? How the fuck was I supposed to know?" In her annoyance, she didn't notice Tig was laughing.

"I don't give a fuck where you live when it doesn't lead an ATF cunt straight my fucking door," Tig said almost pleasantly. Clay suddenly felt his hands seize up. Oh, shit, this was what he'd been talking about—Tig had some... some teenager, from the looks of her... stashed in his place, and he didn't want Stahl bringing her in. It all made sense now.

"Things should die down pretty soon, but I cleared the place out anyway. There's what's in these bags, and there's _her._ The rest of it, ATF can come in and fuck it all up, they want to. It's nothing anybody's gonna miss."

V thought for a moment about how carefully Aisha kept the place, and all the little things she'd brought upstairs. She doubted Tig had found a place in his bags of what were most likely guns and money for a bunch of things like Aisha's sea glass, her herb garden. She'd had to leave all of it behind, V. realized. _Bet he didn't even think to let her pack anything more than what she's wearing._

Tig reached out to touch Aisha for the first time, gripping her shoulder firmly. "This gonna be OK with everyone?" he asked conversationally.

Jax shook his head, not in the negative, but as if to clear his mind. "I—OK, I'm gonna have to ask you a couple of questions here. I mean, you cant just—Jesus Christ." He ran his hands through his hair and lit a cigarette, looked around to where a couple of last night's stragglers were collecting some of the beer bottles, emptying ashtrays, and generally trying to restore the place to a semblance of order, then he turned to Aisha. "Why don't you go talk to the girls, darlin'? We're gonna get this all fixed up."

Tig's hand on her shoulder tightened, and he drew her a little closer. "She can stay here," he said.

Jax shook his head again, more in disbelief this time. "Sure. Fine. Whatever. I don't really get what's going on here and I don't really care. So you had this girl staying at your place… where's she from?"

Tig shrugged, and sat down. "Mind if I get one of those muffins?" he asked. "You're gonna fuckin' interrogate me, least you can do is offer me breakfast."

Jax felt himself getting pissed off. "Interrogate you?" he asked, "what the fuck, I just asked where she's from? I seem to remember _someone_ getting pretty fucking paranoid about _V._ staying here. Now suddenly it's your own personal fed-proof safe deposit box for teenage girls? How old are you, anyway?" he asked her.

She looked at Tig before answering, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. "Nineteen," she said.

V heard Gemma snort in derision, and realized she'd never known how dangerous that could sound. She looked over. Gemma was tapping her fingernails on the side of her coffee cup and looked like she was about to go off on somebody. V wondered if it was wrong of her to be a little bit happy that some of the woman's attention had been drawn away from her night with Jax. "Oh, she talks?" Gemma said sharply. "Well, wouldn't have known that. How long have you been at Tig's place?"

Aisha looked away, waiting for Tig to answer. It became obvious to everyone that she was going to let him get their story straight. Tig, on the other hand, had a look on his face like he was counting on his fingers. "It's what," he said, "five years?" He looked up at her. "Five years, right?"

"Four years seven months," she said.

There was a stunned silence that seemed to stretch on for a full minute. Tig didn't seem to notice, just finished his muffin and reached for another. Aisha was looking around curiously. Everyone else seemed like they didn't know quite what to say. Gemma broke the silence.

"Jesus Christ, Tigger," she snapped, lighting a cigarette. "Her daddy lose to you in a poker game or something?"

Most of them tried not to laugh, Juice not quite succeeding and Bobby managing to turn it into a cough.

"You cleared this?" Jax said to Clay, who nodded. Jax felt himself getting pissed off again, but didn't want to focus any more hostile attention on the girl. While he was still debating what to say, the door slammed open again, and Chibs walked into the room.

He could feel the tension immediately. _And what the hell have I walked into?_ he thought.

Clay sighed, and took over the introductions. "This young lady has been living at an apartment of Tig's-"

"-that none of us knew existed," Jax tossed in.

Clay continued, "-an apartment of Tig's. Now there's some heat, Stahl tryin' to bring her in, seems like a good idea she stays here for a while."

Chibs smiled at her pleasantly. "What apartment?" he asked.

Bobby sounded like he was suppressing a chuckle. "Downstairs from V, seems like. Got Stahl all kinds of interested, I guess."

Chibs looked around, his ears still ringing from the road. Wait a minute—Tig kept an apartment with some girl in it in the same building as V? _Well, _he thought, trying not to start laughing. _It seems I owe the princess an apology. And what I wouldn't have given to be there when she and Tig discovered they were neighbors._


	12. Chapter 12

_Something a little different for you guys-Anfield and I have switched OC protagonists for a chapter! While Anfield's writing about Aisha's introduction to the club, I'm looking in on Gemma and Chibs and V. This scene takes place immediately after Chapter 30 of "The End of The Beginning." Tig has brought Aisha to the clubhouse, Gemma's not happy about it, and she and V. have just headed to work._

_(.net/s/5811458/30/The_End_of_the_Beginning_) for Anfield's chapters. Again, if you're not reading it, this isn't gonna make much sense._

After that little scene back at the clubhouse, V would have been happy enough to head over to work early with Gemma except that she didn't relish the idea of spending the next few hours in such close proximity with the woman when she was this furious. Gemma spent the next hour or so chainsmoking and barely speaking to V, except to point out mistakes she'd made in the paperwork the day before. V tried to keep her mind on-task, but couldn't help wondering what was going on in Gemma's mind.

Shortly before lunch, V felt Gemma staring at her. When she looked up, Gemma started right in without preamble. "You know that girl?" she asked.

V shrugged. "Came up to the apartment a time or two. I guess Tig told her she should introduce herself."

Gemma lit another cigarette off the one she had going in the ashtray. "You think you know somebody," she said softly. She looked up at V. "You saw her face?"

_Of course she noticed that._ "Yeah. Never asked about it."

Gemma nodded. "Shit. I've seen her around, you know? I thought she was older. Hell, I'm the one who told him to bring her here, last night." She slumped down in her chair. V was surprised Gemma was taking this as hard as she was. Gemma looked up, and as though reading V's mind, she narrowed her eyes a bit. "You were at that party last night, V. What did you see?"

V was confused. What was Gemma getting at? "What did I see? Bottle of tequila, mostly. The guys. Crow Eaters..."

"Kids." Gemma's voice cut in sharply. "Grown men with a bunch of kids." She took a long drag of her cigarette. "Could be that's why I don't have it in me to get that pissed off about you and Jax, now that I think of it. At least he's making a fool of himself over someone who's out of high school."

V thought about Chibs calling her old and used-up, and realized she could see exactly what Gemma meant. For fuck's sake, she was thirty. Chibs was was pretty damn old himself compared to her. She shook her head a bit... still couldn't believe the bastard had thought she was fucking Tig. She realized Gemma was staring at her. "What?" she said, wanting to get it over with, if Gemma was going to give her grief over Jax. To her surprise, Gemma smiled.

"I was thinkin' about when you first showed up, with that stolen bike," she said. "Haven't been on a bike since the Oregon run, have you?" V. shook her head, and took the cigarette Gemma offered her and lit it, taking a long drag. Gemma nodded. "Yeah. It's something you start to do less and less. I used to ride with John, you know, back before the kids."

"No shit?"

"No shit. It was different then. It was... its own thing. Not so many unwritten rules." Gemma looked far away for a minute, then visibly pulled herself together. "What the hell am I supposed to do with Tig's teenager wandering around the place?" she asked V.

"I think she'll be fine," V said. "I get the impression she more or less keeps herself busy."

Gemma raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. By the end of the day, they'd fallen back into their usual working rhythm and the closeness of their morning discussion seemed all but forgotten. V. found herself wondering what had been going on back at the clubhouse—how had Aisha been managing? When Chibs showed up just as she was leaving, she found herself more interested in getting some details from him than she was in rehashing their misunderstandings. She was still more than a little pissed off at his assumptions, though, and when she walked out, she paused for a moment rather than going directly to him, and lit herself a cigarette, leaning against the wall next to the door and regarding him calmly. To his credit, he had the decency to look a little sheepish.

"Came by to offer you a ride to the fight tonight," he said offhandedly.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "And why would I want to do that?" she asked. "I thought I was, as Tig put it, 'grounded'?" She enjoyed watching his discomfiture when she brought up Tig's name.

Chibs didn't seem too bothered, just grinned at her. "You're not fighting, that's been decided," he said. "if it were my call, things might be different, but it's Clay's."

She rolled her eyes, and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, he cut her off.

"I know, V. That doesn't matter very much to you. You're outside the regular rules that the rest of us live by; you've made that clear. I'm not going to argue with you. But as long as you're here, you'll find a way to live with it." He leaned his forearm against the wall, and moved closer to her as he spoke. "Maybe I've just missed you, did you think of that?"

She smirked at him. "Really? Nothing at Indian Hills to keep your interest? I thought I was the last thing you'd be thinking about coming back to—you made that pretty clear before you left."

Chibs made a dismissive sound and moved closer to her. While not the most infuriating woman he'd ever met—Fi held that distinction—V's secretiveness and her mercurial nature made it damn near impossible to get close to her. He'd had a lot of time to think about things on the road, and even though he knew he'd misjudged her about Tig, the conclusions he'd drawn still held true—it would be stupid to attempt to force a deeper emotional connection out of V than she was ready for. Didn't mean he was going to be able to stop himself trying entirely, though. "I think before I left, I had a few mistaken ideas," he said. Although he didn't come out and say it, the words had the tone of an apology.

"Yeah, no shit," said V, crushing her cigarette under her heel. She couldn't help laughing, though. "How the fuck," she asked, "could you think I was banging _him_?"

Chibs tried not to laugh, and didn't quite succeed. "Apparently he's got his hands full," he chuckled. Turning more serious, he leaned in to question her. "Let me ask you something," he said. "You've known about this?"

She nodded.

"Stahl brought it up when she questioned you, then." It was a question, and V nodded again. "Right, then," Chibs said. "Let me ask you this. How bad do you think it could get? There's nothing she could find out about this girl, is there?"

A part of V. wanted to tell Chibs about the afternoon that Aisha had come to her apartment, about the bundle of clothes with the gun and the money that still sat at the farthest corner of the top shelf in her closet. She was pretty sure there was a story there, one that maybe even Tig didn't know all of. She stayed quiet, though. In between all these people and their rabid loyalties—Chibs' to the club, Aisha's to Tig, for that matter Gemma's to her family—V had a sense of wanting to be careful, not wanting to declare a side. Aisha had trusted her. Besides, V. somehow felt that whatever game Aisha was running, the last thing she was going to do was hurt Tig. And Tig was loyal to Clay. By extension—following these alliances to their ultimate conclusion, she was keeping Aisha's secret for the good of the club.

"How's she settling in?" V said with a quick conspiratorial grin. She was interested in hearing what had happened, but more than that, she wanted to keep things with Chibs light. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the heavy bag she used to practice, the bag he'd pressed her against before he left, when he told her nobody would ever love her.

Chibs started laughing. "I think the prospect's in love," he said. "Jax doesn't get this thing with her and Tig, only knows that he doesn't like it. Clay gets it, but isn't about to let on in front of the Queen, is he? The rest of them are too busy trying to put it together." He shook his head. "Someone should really explain to Gemma that it's probably a rare thing for Tig to have found someone as crazy as he is."

V smiled at him. "You think she's crazy."

He looked intently at her. "Aye. Have you seen the way she looks at him? That I do, princess. As crazy as you are. The two of you are different as night and day in some ways, but that is not one of them." He leaned forward again, and took the cigarette she was about to light out of her mouth. "Are you coming to this fight with me, then?"

V wanted to take a step back and ask him why the hell he'd want to be seen with her, given the things he'd said to her before leaving. Somehow, though, the close physical proximity of him just brought back the feeling she'd had at his words, not the anger, but her desire to hear more of it, to have everyone hear what he thought of her and then to have him take her right there. There'd always been an element of shame to her feelings for him, but he'd taken that and twisted it into something of his own. When she spoke, her voice was dry. "Sure you'd be ok with me walking in with you?" she asked. She'd meant to words to sound hard, but instead they just came out plaintive.

He reached out with one hand and grabbed her hip firmly, his fingers inadvertently finding bruises he'd left before and reawakening them. With his other hand, he gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I'd be proud, princess," he said, and kissed her. Tired as she was, still hungover_, _she felt her entire body leap into wakefulness when he touched her. Still, she was the one who broke the kiss, nodding her assent and walking out with him.

Just before they got onto the bike, he stopped her. "It isn't true what he said, is it?" he asked her.

She looked quizzically at him.

"What Tig said in the clubhouse. You didn't get these bruises protecting him, or the club, or anybody."

She shrugged. "Yeah. No. I didn't. I could say all kinds of things about how I ended up with these bruises because _you _like to jump to fuckin' conclusions, but the truth is, like you said... it's what I want. Jax didn't get it, he asked me..." she broke off. _What the fuck had she just said? Shit. _

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Jax again? Not even trying to hide it now?"

In that moment, she decided to stop playing the game. She met his eyes defiantly. "Yeah," she said. "Jax. I may have told him I wasn't going to be his old lady, but that doesn't mean that I ever said I wanted to be yours." She held his gaze for a minute longer, silently daring him to say something else about how she was a fool to think he'd ever want her like that. When he didn't answer, she turned to the bike. "Come on," she said. "We've got a date to watch a fight."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

_This follows Chapter 30 of "The End of the Beginning"-Tig's just left Aisha at the clubhouse._

Aisha spent the afternoon and evening trying to clean out the room as she'd been instructed. The fact that she didn't know where anything was and wasn't supposed to talk to anyone made things a fair amount harder than they had to be, but after they all left in the evening she started making reasonable progress, even venturing out of the room to look for supplies and something to eat. She wasn't sure what she should touch and what she shouldn't, and the clubhouse was so much bigger than the apartment that she found herself scared. Someone had left the TV going, and the rise in volume when commercials came on was making her jump.

Pretty soon, though, she felt like she was back into the ryhthm of things and the room was starting to look halfway decent. Glancing at the bed, she wondered absently where he kept the clean sheets, then stopped. _This is where he sleeps every night_, she thought. She could count the times she'd been able to sleep next to him on one hand... other than that time he'd broken her ribs, he always left, either when he was done with her or while she was sleeping. There were times she'd fought to keep her eyes open, hoping that he might get tired enough to lay down with her, but he'd just laughed at her and told her not to watch him like that. This was where he went, though, when he left. He came here. He'd been here as recently as the night before, when she was waiting for him in the apartment.

Keeping one careful eye on the door, and listening for any noise, she sat down nervously on the edge of the bed and touched one of the pillows, then lay her cheek against it reverently. The part of it that she didn't want to think about kept coming back to her—this was where he brought other women—but in the end, the need to feel close to him won out, and looking as though she was terrified of being caught, Aisha slipped under the covers and closed her eyes, lost in his scent on the pillows and thoughts of him here without her.

_-0- The next part follows "End of The Beginning" Chapter 31; after the fight has been raided and the Sons brought in for questioning._

Stahl walked back into the room with a thick file in her hand. She smiled at Tig with a raised eyebrow, seeming extremely pleased with herself. "We've cut everyone else loose," she said conversationally. "Just wanted to go over a few last things with you... about your girlfriend."

Tig snorted. "Afraid I don't have one of those, sorry."

Stahl gave him a look of innocent surprise. "Oh, I'm sorry—old lady?" She shook her head again. "No, that isn't right either, is it? Hmmmm... should we call her your little girl?" She turned her full smile onto him, then suddenly was all business, dropping a photograph on the table between them. Tig didn't pick it up, or even look at it, but kept his eyes on hers, smiling pleasantly. They each held the others' gaze for a moment, and then Stahl looked away uncomfortably. She sat down across from him.

"Aisha Jaiden Lang, 19 years old." she said in a preoccupied tone, leafing through her file. "Our records have her last attending school up north five years ago, never came back after her mother's murder." She glanced up at Tig. "Really ugly scene, the mother was beaten to death and her pimp shot. Kid missing. CPS took a look, but didn't find anything. Maybe someone was taking care of her." She smiled at him again. "In any case, she seems to have resurfaced recently as a hanger-on of the Sons of Anarchy." She shook her head. "Not the sort of world you'd like to see a kid like that involved in, but I guess it was what she knew."

She laid another photo on top of the first, the one she'd shown V—Aisha staring up at him in the parking lot of her building. The photo had caught her face as she looked up at him, and he couldn't keep himself from taking a look, curious how it looked to someone on the outside. The absolute candor of her expression startled him. He knew how she felt about him, but seeing it here, captured with a camera, especially sitting in a room with this duplicitous bitch, it was like looking at it with entirely new eyes.

Stahl leaned forward with a soft, conspiratorial tone. "How long have you been sleeping with her, Mr. Trager?"

Tig dropped the photo and gave the ATF agent his most insinuating smile. "You're not gonna ask me to remember something like that," he said. "Lot of girls around the clubhouse. If I go back for seconds, I don't always remember being there the first time."

Stahl smiled at him. "She's different though," she said. "Isn't she? Doesn't seem like your usual taste. And she was living with you for a while, wasn't she? It looks like you went back for more than seconds."

He shrugged, then looked away, giving the impression that the subject didn't interest him anymore. "This what you do now? Round us up and ask us about our sex lives? Hey, I can think of worse jobs."

Stahl opened the folder and took out a third photo, but looked at it, not placing it with the other two. "Seen this?" she asked. "This is her mother. Amber. Died of blunt force trauma to the head and face. From the looks of it, it took awhile." She looked up. "The coloring's different, but little Aisha looks just like her mom. Not that you can tell it from these."

_Bullshit, _thought Tig. _Amber and Aisha were night and day. I should know. _Outwardly, though, he kept smiling, taking a polite look at the photograph as though Stahl were showing off pictures of her grandkids. "That's a sad story," he said. "Mind cutting me loose now?"

She didn't seem to hear him. "Interesting thing about this case," she said. "County sheriff's office never closed it. Seems there was someone there besides the whore and her pimp, Mr. Trager." She looked up at him. "I guess he didn't like being interrupted. Looks like after shooting the pimp, he went back to work on _her. _Ugly, ugly scene."

He was silent, maintaining just the slight edge of a bored look on his face.

"Your little girl had a rough time of it, Mr. Trager. "

He smiled. "Everyone's got a story."

She looked up at him again, sweeping up the three photos. "Of course," she said, "sheriff's office didn't really have much manpower to put behind it. The kind of murder that happens every day among people like that." She shrugged. "Although now, with the girl back on the radar," she met his eyes and stopped smiling, "it might be time to take another look." With exaggerated politeness, she gestured to the door. "You can go now, Mr. Trager. Let us know if you hear from your friend."

-0-

Tig strode out to his bike in something very close to a rage. Stahl had reminded him of a lot of things he didn't like the think about, and then followed it up with an implied threat about opening up what had happened back there all those years ago. On the ride back, he tried to piece things together. There were a few things that weren't right about her story.

When he arrived, the clubhouse was loud. While not strictly a party, the guys were tense enough about having been questioned, and relieved enough at being let go so quickly, that there was some spur-of-the-moment drinking going on and a few of the girls who'd been at the fight were hanging out in the main room and around the pool table. As he scanned the room, Tig saw Bobby rolling a joint for a tall blonde in red lipstick whose frizzy hair rivalled his. At the sight of him, something clicked in Tig's mind, something Stahl had shown him. He narrowed his eyes, and strode across the room, grabbing Bobby by the front of the shirt and pulling him into a corner, to the shocked eyes of the girls and the baffled looks of his brothers.

"What the hell, man?" Bobby asked. "What took you? We've all been back for-"

"You were supposed to clean it up," Tig said. "You and the prospect. Remember? How the fuck was there anything there for that bitch to have pictures of?"

Bobby looked confusedly towards Half-Sack, and Tig shook his head, gesturing to Juice, who was looking at them quizzically from across the room. "That one," he said. "That stupid fuck, back when he was trying to patch in. The two of you were supposed to ride up to Humboldt and get rid of a couple of bodies and a gun. Remember that, Bobby?"

The horrified look on Bobby's face told him all he needed to know.

"Shit, you never did," he said. "What was it? Cops already there?"

Bobby looked sick. "Almost. They showed up right after we did."

Tig let go of him, disgusted.

"Hey, we didn't think it would amount to anything!" Bobby said. "You saw what it looked like! He beat her up, somebody shot him, you took the gun with you, so what was there to connect you with it? Looked like a robbery, somethin'..."

Tig turned back to him, his voice flat and his eyes cold. "What did you say? I took the gun with me?"

"There wasn't a gun there, man. It was the first thing we looked for! We did what we could to clean it up, got rid of prints... where are you going?"

Tig had turned his back and walked away, heading for his room. One of the Crow Eaters, a dark-haired girl that he could vaguely recall having been with before, moved into his path. "Hey there," she said.

"Hey," he responded cheerfully. "How about you get the fuck out of my way?" He didn't even pause to see her face fall as he walked straight past her.

At first he didn't see Aisha, and he was too angry to notice the careful job she'd done with his things. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw her, wearing one of his shirts and curled up in her customary sleeping position, looking as though she were trying to protect herself, in the center of his bed. Her arms were wrapped around one of his pillows, and her cheeks were flushed.

He sat on the edge of the bed, thinking for a moment that he should really just climb in next to her and get some sleep. Another part of him wanted strongly to push her onto her stomach, cover her mouth with one hand, and fuck her before she had time to wake up. Still another part of him didn't even want to touch her.

He'd never really thought about that night up there, or connected that fucked up junkie whore with his Aisha. Now, Stahl's words rang in his ears. She was that bitch's kid. She was living in the Sons clubhouse now, because it was what she knew. He might go down for... God, he didn't even want to think how long... because he'd decided to bring this thing home with him.

She tossed her head in her sleep, almost as though she could feel his eyes on her. He thought about going to Clay and explaining the whole thing, telling him that now Stahl was looking into ancient history. He knew what Clay would say. Hell, he knew what _he _would have said. He looked down at her, wondering if he could do it himself and realizing that she probably wouldn't even fight him if he said it was the way things had to be. He continued staring down at her, lost in the thought of the different ways he could kill Aisha. He'd want to see her eyes when it happened... suddenly he realized that he'd run his fingers down her cheek, the way he only did when she was sleeping and couldn't see.

Furious, he jumped up. _Fuck,_ he thought. He knew he should talk to Clay about this, and soon. So why the fuck couldn't he make himself do it?

He stormed back outside, over to the dark-haired Crow Eater, who was giggling into Juice's face. He remembered her now. Her dark curls and full mouth had been the things that attracted him to her. She'd do. Without any preamble, he grabbed her wrist and jerked his head for her to follow. She looked up at him with a playful pout, which became a look of nervousness as he jerked her towards the room. At the door he stopped, putting one finger on her lips. "Wait here a second," he said.

With one fist in Aisha's hair, he dragged her out of his bed and out of the door of his room, throwing her into the hall. He could tell she wasn't even sure what was happening as he pulled the Crow Eater into the room with him and slammed the door, leaving Aisha in the hallway.


	14. Chapter 14

_Thanks for the positive feedback. I'm glad people like Aisha-I had been worried people would consider her limited as a character. I'm having fun with writing her interacting with the other guys, definitely._

Chapter 14:

Deputy Chief Hale brushed past Tig on his way out of the station house, barely able to wait until the man had left. He sharply opened the door the the room where Stahl had been conducting her questioning, startling her. Despite her bravado, he noticed she'd gotten jumpy since her run-in with Big Otto in Stockton. He decided to make the most of the opportunity, and launched into his tirade before she had a chance to compose herself.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked. "Are you trying to get another woman killed?"

She looked up at him, eyes wide, but pulled herself together almost instantly. "_Another_ woman?" she said with mock incredulousness. "Deputy Chief, if you're in possession of some information on the death of Donna Winston, I suggest you make it known to the bureau or consider doing your job."

He stared at her disgustedly. "I know what _you_ know," he said with loathing. "You set Opie up to look like the rat and his wife took five bullets in the head trying to drive home after a party. Now you're planning to convince the Sons that this girl links them to some unsolved crank murder that didn't happen anywhere near Charming? What do you have to connect Alex Trager with the shooting, anyway?"

She looked through him, her eyes both faraway and calculating. "Nothing real," she admitted. "It seems there were some vague rumors going around at the time, but you know know how hard it can be to get any of these people to speak up where guys like this are concerned." She fixed her eyes on him. "Rumors. Deputy Chief, do you know I have a stack of files like this one containing probably every rumor anyone's ever breathed about the Sons of Anarchy, some of them obvious lies and other probably very true? The one thing they all have in common is that I've got nothing to tie the Sons to someone's wild story. I probably couldn't get a warrant on anything I have in there."

He stared at her. "I don't understand," he said. "Then why start making accusations now?"

She smiled. "Because now, he's nervous. Because now, I'm doing a routine background check into Sons of Anarchy pussy, and I pull up the daughter of murder victim that at least one person thinks Trager may be responsible for. He's Clay's right-hand man Do you have any idea how much he knows?" Her smile grew wider. "She was fifteen when that murder happened, you know. And she disappeared for four years. Think he had her locked up all that time? That's kidnapping, statutory rape, hell for all we know he gave her drugs to keep her quiet—Deputy Chief, do you know how many felony counts we're talking about her, not even touching the murder charge?"

He looked at her, aghast. She continued. "Maybe not. Maybe she got him to do it _for _her. Maybe this was some heartwarming Mickey-and-Mallory story. Girl's obviously got something, we haven't been able to tie him to regular woman in all the time we've been looking at the club. Now maybe I know why."

"This is all speculation," Hale said. "You don't even know the girl was there when her mother was killed, or if he's the one who did it. Why don't you bring her in and question her?"

Hale looked at him, livid. "What do you think I've been trying to do?" she asked furiously. "I made the mistake of letting that other one know I had an eye on Trager's girl, and she must have tipped him off. Trager's place went dark, and nobody's seen the girl since."

"Well then," he asked coldly. "How do you know she isn't dead already?"

Stahl looked back down at the picture in her hand. It showed a woman, blonde hair matted with blood, face unrecognizable. "I don't," she said. "But you can see how I thought it not be the worst idea in the world to let him know that somebody was aware she even existed."

Hale made a disgusted sound and turned his back on her. He couldn't believe she'd put him in this position again, but he was going to have to make a phone call.

-0-

Bobby looked over at the teenager who'd sat for the past seven hours outside his brother's door without speaking to anyone. Her eyes were closed, head tilted back against the wall, arms resting lightly on her knees in front of her, but he knew she wasn't sleeping. She'd opened her eyes at every sound, except to for that of the door bedroom door opening as the dark-haired girl slipped out an hour or so after Tig had brought her in. The Crow Eater stopped and looked down at Aisha, who didn't acknowledge her.

"Look-" the girl began.

Jax was across the room in a moment's time. "I don't think there's anything you need to say here, darlin'," he told her. "You just get yourself home now." He watched her go and then looked down at Aisha, "Hey," he said. "You okay?"

She nodded once, then opened her eyes and looked at him. Much as V had, he noticed that she wasn't quite old enough to pull off what she was trying to sell, which at this moment was a dismissive look that asked him _why wouldn't I be?_

"You need me to find you somewhere to sleep?"

She shook her head, still fixing him with the same look.

On an impulse, he sat down next to her and pulled out a pack of smokes, offering her one. After a long pause, she took it, and he lit it for her. The first drag made her erupt into an almost comical fit of coughing, and when she spoke for the first time, her voice was raspy. She made a disgusted sound and handed him the cigarette. "Really," she said, "I think I'd better not."

Jax made a couple of other efforts at starting conversation, but Aisha didn't answer him, and after a while she tilted her head back and closed her eyes again. Jax found himself settling in next to her, smoking and thinking about things. V. and Chibs hadn't even come back to the clubhouse. It wasn't something he wanted to think about, and sitting with a person who didn't talk started to seem not half bad.

Around an hour or so later, Clay had called to Jax from a few feet away. "Come on," he said in a tone that sounded almost uncomfortable. "Leave her alone."

Jax looked up at him with a furious look. Clay's excuses for anything Tig did were starting to get real fucking tired. Couldn't he see this girl needed someone? "Nah, I'm okay," he said.

Clay looked annoyed. "Yeah? Whatever's going on here you think you're helping with, you think it's going to go better for her when he opens the door and you're keeping her company?"

They both could hear her sharp intake of breath, and then she almost laughed. "He's got a point," she said to Jax, unsmilingly. She turned to Clay. "They kept him longer. At the station. Longer than the rest of you."

Clay nodded. "Noticed that too. Think that's anything to do with you?"

She didn't seem surprised at the question. "Maybe. It's not time to worry yet." She turned to Jax. "I'm fine. Seriously."

She'd closed her eyes again after that, but Bobby was pretty sure she hadn't slept, and she was in the same position when he woke up and stumbled into the kitchen. "Hey!" he called to her. "Come over here and help me get breakfast together before someone trips over you."

She's flashed him her first genuine smile, walked over and helped him get things set up. After a few minutes and a worried look toward Tig's door, she'd asked him where the shower was, and disappeared. The guys began slowly wandering in, each one of them giving him a questioning look, but it was Juice who finally asked. "He ever let her back in?"

Bobby shook his head. "Nah. Sat out there all night."

Juice shook his head. "Damn. That's _cold._"

"It's nothing we need to be worried about," Clay said as he entered the room. "Sooner we all stop speculating about each others' love lives, sooner this'll start to seem like a motorcycle club instead of a soap opera. I fuckin' hope." For his part, he doubted that would really be possible with V. around, let alone this new one, who in her own way was an even worse distraction. Clay had always suspected there were a number of things he didn't know and didn't _want _to know about his sergeant-at-arms, and this was one of the first things that, to him at least, actually made some sense. Not something he was going to try and explain to the rest of them, though... particularly Jax, who was already looking like he was going to be a pain in the ass with his goddamn rescuer complex.

Aisha came out of the bathroom, towel-drying her hair and wearing the same clothes she had the day before, one of Tig's dark shirts and a pair of her own jeans. Eventually, he'd probably let her in there, at least to get some of her clothes. In the meantime, she was more comfortable around these guys if she wasn't dressed too much like a girl, anyway. Seeing so many of them there made her nervous all over again, and stopped as she came into the room.

"Oh, don't just stand there," Bobby said to her, smiling. "You have to eat somethin', especially if you helped make it. House rules."

-0-

Tig stretched out and looked around the room, unable for a moment to think of where he might have left Aisha. He had to admit, the room looked pretty good. As for the rest of it, well, in the light of day it had started to seem like something he might able to manage. All things considered, he'd had a good night, and he was glad he'd decided to handle things the way he had. He'd found that when problems just started piling on, fucking something was a really good way to get some perspective. He was ready for some breakfast, that was for sure.

When he came out into the main room of the clubhouse, all the conversation stopped. He walked over to where Aisha stood with her back to him and wrapped his arms around her, inhaling the smell of her hair and teasing the side of her neck with his fingers. Bobby watched the girl light up, as though she'd only been halfway present in the room before and was now, suddenly, actually there. Tig leaned forward and murmured into something into her ear—sounded like he was asking if she was happy to see him—and every bit of tension left her body as she closed her eyes and leaned back into his arms.


	15. Chapter 15

_Yes, we switched main characters again. I swear, this is the last time!_

_So this takes place simultaneously with anfield's chapter 33 of "End of the Beginning." Seriously. As in, people walk out of the room in that chapter, and in this one, you get to hear what they say when they do. I hope it's not too infuriating, really._

_As always, feedback is really appreciated!_

Chapter 15:

Chibs drove V. to work in her car, V moving over as she had the night before to let him take the wheel. Before heading back into the office with Gemma, she turned around and gave him a long, slow, searching look. He could tell she was weighing him, evaluating. She'd been oddly silent since their encounter last night, but suddenly realized that he didn't care. He met her gaze firmly, and smiled at her, until finally she looked away.

At some point, he realized, he'd started thinking so hard about what V. needed, about what she wanted, about how to give her whatever it was that made him different from Jax, that he'd forgotten why he was in this in the first place. V had a become a puzzle he was frantically trying to solve, and stopped being the woman herself, gorgeous and confused and unable to belong to anyone. Now, watching her from a distance, he was able appreciate the way she moved, the lean quick tension in her fighter's body that contrasted with her full mouth and surprising vulnerability. He was never sure from one moment to the next if he really was in love with V. or not, but by now he had to admit that he wanted her in ways he hadn't known existed.

As he stood watching V., he saw Clay approaching him from the clubhouse. _Shit, _he thought. _Here I am staring after her like I've gone daft._ He quickly walked to Clay, refusing to let himself spare her another glance. Clay looked like V was the last thing on his mind, anyway.

"I've been thinking about that bust last night," Clay said. He sounded tense and at the same time, tired.

"That was a load of bullshit," Chibs fumed. "I don't know what they wanted but they didn't give a shit about a fighting ring."

Clay nodded. "That much was clear. What they did want, I'm not so sure. Jax told me that once she got you in for questioning, that fed just showed you guys a bunch of pictures of the two of you bangin' our V., trying to get a rise out of you." He raised an eyebrow. "That true?"

Chibs found himself actually laughing, surprised that Jax had told Clay the truth. "That's about the size of it, yeah. I think Jacky took it harder than I did."

Clay fixed him with a sudden, penetrating look. "I gotta know," he said. "This thing with V., how much damage could it potentially do? I don't like the idea of this much drama in a charter, but there's something that keeps me from tossing her out of here, and it's not just that Gemma likes having someone around to bitch at." He stared Chibs down. "Last thing I need, though, is any more of her loose cannon bullshit, or tearing my charter apart trying to prove she gets everyone's dick hard. So?"

Chibs couldn't help smiling. "She does like to provoke a reaction."

Clay raised an eyebrow. "So I noticed. You think you can keep that in check, or at least contained?"

Chibs wanted to burst out laughing, but could see Clay was taking this all fairly seriously—despite the fact that he was talking like V. was a grenade that he was being asked to throw himself onto for the sake of his brothers. _I think I can just about manage that, _he thought. "Don't see why not," he said. "Besides, she may be a loose cannon, like you say, but she's shown herself to be pretty devoted to this club."

Clay nodded. "Fine. I've got some intel. Last night, at the fights, none of the Nords who actually organize the fuckin' matches got pulled in. Not one." He unfolded a small slip of paper. "Here's the address of the guy who sets things up. Wasn't there last night, for some reason—that's probably why the fight schedule was all shot to shit. Guess he knew the place was going to get raided."

Chibs took the paper. "You want me to go over there?"

Clay nodded. "I want to know what was in it for them, losing that much revenue, in order to get the MC pulled in to look at dirty pictures for a couple of hours. Who dropped the dime and why." He looked over at the office window. "And bring V. Let her blow off some steam getting answers out of the guy. Nothing's worse for these Nazi fucks than getting beaten up by a girl."

-0-

V walked over to the clubhouse to grab some coffee, and then made her way back to the office. Coming in, she grabbed the stack of repos, but before she could start leafing through them, Gemma had taken both the papers and her cup of coffee. "You're needed on some club business," she said, tossing V a set of keys. "Take the prospect's bike."

When V left the office, Chibs was standing there, with a helmet in his hands. He quickly briefed her on the situation, his voice entirely different than the tone in which he spoke to her when they were alone together. It was almost as if he were saying _we'll deal with all that later, but for now, it's business, _and she found herself falling right into it with him.

"So you think the fight was a setup to bring the Sons in? And that's why everything was so ass-backwards last night?" she asked.

"Not sure, but this guy should be able to tell us. You think you're up for this?"

She grinned at him. "Oh, yeah. This your idea?"

He shook his head. "Clay. He thought it would send a message, we bring a woman in to get the answers out of him. Makes sense, considering you're one of our top fighters so it's your game they're fucking with."

V stood there sqinting in the sun, trying to figure this all out. Running the guns up to Oregon, fighting for money—these were things an outsider could do. This was different. "Clay okayed this?" she asked again.

"Like I said, princess, it was his idea. Are you going to stand there, or are we going to go work out some of our frustrations in a different way than usual?" He grinned at her, and she decided for the hundredth time since she came to Charming to just let whatever it was that was going to happen play itself out.

-0-

Tig followed Clay into the chapel. He didn't really like leaving Aisha out there, but guessed it was something he'd have to get used to. Maybe he could have her stay in his room, or something, not come out when he wasn't there...

"I gotta ask you a few questions," Clay said, lighting one of his cigars and pouring a drink.

Tig nodded. "I don't know how much I can answer," he said. "But you want her out, she's out. Just say the word."

Clay snorted. "Not your girl, there. She's fine. From the look of things, she probably wouldn't know what to do without you tellin' her, so I'm not too worried she's gonna pull any shit. Relax." He puffed on the cigar and looked like he was chewing something over. Finally, he sighed and looked back at Tig. "I'll be honest with you," he said, "I'm fuckin' shorthanded right now."

Tig nodded. "You know I'm all here, right? This shit doesn't interfere."

Clay nodded. "I do know that. It's not you. It's everything. I got word from the Arizona charter, this King Leo business is ringing alarm bells all through the fuckin' southwest. Guy was more connected than we knew. We've still got the ATF, and now this thing with the fights... this thing doesn't make sense. Only reason I can think for her bringing us in is to let us know she has something, make us sweat a bit. She say anything like that to you?"

Tig shook his head, not believing that he was about to lie to Clay, and not quite sure why he was doing it. "Threatened she knew a lot more than she was telling, tried to get me to turn on some old shit, like she tried to get out of Otto that time."

Clay chuckled. "Why you? Of all the guys. That's the one thing I don't get." He looked more seriously at Tig. "I gotta ask. You said you trust V. She didn't rat you out... you think that means anything?"

Tig smiled, thinking of the look in Chibs' eyes when he'd thought Tig was nailing V. "She's a crazy bitch all right, but yeah—I think she's loyal."

Clay walked towards the door. "OK. Well, I gotta think about a few things, talk to Gemma maybe. I don't know how good an idea any of this is, but it's desperate times. Besides, Jax needs to know he can't have everything his own way all the time. Speaking of Jax, by the way, you might want to run him off your girl, first chance you get. That's drama I don't need."

Tig froze, locking a steely glance on Clay. "What the fuck," he said slowly, "is that supposed to mean?"

Clay didn't get a chance to answer. As they opened the door, they could both see Jax leaning over Aisha, and Tig had crossed the room before Clay even had a chance to speak.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

Clay had stopped at the door to the chapel, surveying the scene. _Shit,_ he thought. _This is exactly what I was fuckin' talking about._

Jax looked up, and was relieved to see that Tig didn't seem to be in the rage that might be expected. Whatever his relationship with the girl, his feelings for her couldn't be very strong, given his behavior last night and the calm look on his face as he crossed the room. Feeling a tad more secure, he tightened his grasp on Aisha's hands before letting go. "We'll talk," he said softly.

Aisha fought the urge to just close her eyes. Instead, she forced herself to keep her gaze locked on Tig's, despite the almost overwhelming desire to just look down and let whatever was going to happen, happen. Slowly and deliberately, she drew her hands out from under Jax's. _Don't panic,_ she thought. _This is what you do. You take the situation in, and you come up with a plan. __Fast. You've done it before. _It was hard to concentrate, though, looking at his face.

Tig was smiling.

She thought of the first time she'd seen him smile like that, dropping the gun and wiping her mother's blood off his knuckles before pulling on his gloves, and remembered going through the same thought process she was going through right now, then thought of a dozen other occasions, before that, when she'd had to choose between the devil she knew and some unknown terror. There had been the fire that had sent her to juvie for six months, right around the time her mother had moved in a boyfriend who had cornered her in the shower one time. It had been a carefully-chosen crime. In juvie, serious arson got you branded as crazy. Crazy got you left alone.

She'd have to be pretty fucking fast to make this work, though, and she'd better hope she was right when she'd taken the one quick glance at the situation and predicted what everyone involved was going to do.

Tig's smile got a little wider, and his voice was soft and almost melodic when he spoke. "Hey, kid," he said in an insinuating tone. "Thought you said you didn't like bikers?"

_Crying's not going to work, _she thought. _There's absolutely nothing you can do or say here that he's going to believe, unless you take it all the way._ Keeping her eyes on his, Aisha raised her chin and looked at him defiantly. Her voice was low but completely steady when she spoke. "You have something you want to say?"

Everything happened really fast, then. Just as she'd thought, Clay quickly shook his head and ducked out of the room, presumably not interested in seeing her get her fucking jaw broken (_that's one). _Tig moved around the bar, his eyes incredulous, closing the distance between them in what seemed like an instant (_that's two. Shit, he's faster than I thought.) _And then, just as she'd expected, Jax stepped in front of her, blocking Tig's way, his back to her. She had just enough time to think that if this went badly, there was a good possibility it would happen too fast for her to have to spend too much time in any state to really care.

In one move, she had Jax's gun out of his shoulder holster and taken a step back to get her arm out of range. Both men heard the click of the safety as she pointed the gun straight at the back of Jax's head, her left hand steadying her right wrist. "I think I can clear this up," she said in a small voice. "If you'll just give me a chance."

She backed around the bar, gun still trained on Jax, until she was in her usual place behind and to Tig's left. She had, she knew, roughly another four seconds before his shock gave way to action. Before that could happen, she lowered the gun and and, with the grip first, handed it to Tig, then stepped in front of him. Without looking at him, she felt him take the gun, heard it cock again. Again without looking, she knew it wasn't pointed at Jax this time but at the back of her head, could tell partly by the look that flashed into Jax's eyes. If she hadn't just pulled that gun on _him_, he'd be going after it right now, but given that she had, he was that much less likely to jump in. She'd counted on that.

"Let me show you something," she said, and turned her face slightly to the side, lifting her hair. "Did you guys all get a chance to check this out last night? I don't think anyone really saw it close up."

Jax had, in fact, kept his eyes off her scar, preferring not to think about what it was, what it meant, and the circumstances under which she might have gotten it. Now, he found himself looking at it closely, and was slightly sickened. It was deep, he could tell, and it wasn't new. _How old was she when he gave her that, _he thought, his brain still trying to catch up with what the hell was going on.

"I'm not a prisoner," she said again. "This wasn't something that was done to me. Nobody held me down and gave me that scar... _I earned it_." And she smiled at him.

She felt rather than saw Tig lower the gun behind her slightly, and spoke directly to the baffled look in Jax's eyes. "He still have that gun to my head?"

Jax nodded slightly, with a look that told her _and I ain't doing a fucking thing about it._

"That's good," she said softly, sounding as childlike as Tig had ever heard her. "Because whatever that looked like back there, if there is ever even _one second_ where that man has to wonder about me—if I ever do anything that causes him to think that I don't wake up every day _knowing_ who I belong to—if _anything_ I do ever makes him think I might not be loyal, well," her voice faltered a bit, but she went on. "Before that happened, I'd like him to pull the trigger."

She might have been a little girl asking him to read her a bedtime story.

The three of them were silent for a moment, then Tig carefully lowered the gun and politely set it on the bar next to Jax. He seemed to be having some difficulty fighting back laughter, Jax noticed, both furious and baffled. "Thanks for letting us use this," Tig said politely to Jax, a hint of the laughter still in his voice as he reached under his cut for his own gun, which he began using to gently tease the back of Aisha's neck, the way he'd done with his fingers when he first came into the room that morning, his good mood seeming entirely restored. "I think we can figure out the rest of it on our own." He leaned down and kissed the top of Aisha's head, then cracked her across the temple with the gun hard enough to make Jax flinch. "Move," he said. As Jax saw them go into Tig's room, he heard Tig finally start laughing as he asked "now why would you want to pull a stunt like that?" and then the door closed firmly.

That did it. He didn't understand one fucking thing about women anymore.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

It had done something to him when she put it into words like that. Hearing her say out loud, staring Jax down, that she knew she belonged to him... well, until then there hadn't been a single good thing about his private world with Aisha colliding with the MC. Now, suddenly, they both seemed to set each other off perfectly. _Loyalty,_ he thought as he shoved her through the doorway. He wasn't ready to think about what it meant, but he'd never expected to see that kind of thing in a bitch. Finding it in the kid was like realizing something he was used to seeing every day was priceless, needed to be guarded. At the same time, his desperate need to keep the guys away from her had subsided into something else, something he didn't really have a name for until, as he found himself barely taking the time to rip her jeans off before he thrust into her, he realized what it was. He trusted her.

Her legs were wrapped around his waist, and he raised himself to his knees, looking down at her. She met his gaze adoringly, and he knew she was holding herself just at the edge, waiting for him to tell her she could let go. He reached down and pressed his thumb against her scar. "You earned this?" he said as he slowed down again, feeling her back arch, her cheek turn to find his hand. "Is that what you think?" He pulled his hand back and slapped her across the face. "You haven't even _begun_ to earn this."

He drew himself out of her for a few moments, just to hear her beg, and turned her over, pushing her down by the back of the neck and raising her hips with his other hand until her shoulders were pressed against the bed and her ass in the air. "I heard you voice today," he said. "I wanna hear it now. Tell me how much you want it." Her answer was barely coherent, a frantic whispered scream begging him _please _as he forced her face down into the bed and felt himself start to come, grinding himself into her with every one of her cries. He didn't know why he couldn't take his time with her the first time, but it had been that way since the beginning, although usually he liked to watch her come before he did. This time, though, he'd wanted that desperate need to accompany him all the way.

When he was done, he looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, but he could feel the tension in he body, could sense how hard it must be for her not to reach for him, not to start begging again unless he said he wanted to hear it. He turned her over, and without thinking about it, reached to the nightstand table for his gun. When she felt it pressing against the spot where her jawline met her neck, she opened her eyes. He smiled at her absently, but his eyes were cold. Gun in one hand, he impatiently flicked her hair off her face to get a better look at her.

She wasn't sure which felt more impersonal, the gun at her neck or the way he looked at her. "You look like a kid," he said expressionlessly. "Plenty of girls younger than you can pull it off, looking like a woman, but you, no matter what you do, you look like a fucking baby. I hear some guys are into that, but I never figured out why." His hand slapped her cheek lightly, then moved downward. She could feel herself starting to panic. It wasn't like he'd never looked her over before—it was something he did, a way that he kept the distance between them even when he was inside of her—but this was somehow different. It felt like he was actually weighing, measuring and judging, and she wasn't sure what hung in the balance.

He pinched her nipple roughly, making her arch her back again and choke back a deep moan. "Your tits are too fuckin' small," he went on. "I like the way you move, though. You can't hide anything, did you know that? Everything I do to you, I get to see it on your face." He moved closer to her, and his hand moved back up to her face, his thumb pressing on her lower lip. She opened her mouth obediently, and he forced him thumb into her mouth, watching her hips start to move as he ran his thumb over her teeth and felt her tongue fluttering against it. His other hand, with the gun, he began to move downward, pausing to press it against the place where he'd broken her ribs, hard. Before she could scream, his hand was over her mouth. "Not now," he said. "Now I don't want to hear you. Now I just want to look at you. I'm talking."

He kept his hand firmly over her mouth as he pushed he legs apart with the gun, feeling her start to tremble. He stopped, and looked her over one more time. "You turned out real pretty," he said. "You're too fuckin' thin, you look like a kid, you don't move like a girl, and you don't know how to fuck. Enthusiasm makes up for a lot, but _you_" he let the gun move against up against her, and with every word he emphasized, he began to force it into her, "do _not_ know _how_ to _fuck."_

He saw her eyes go wide and pressed his hand down more firmly over her mouth. "No screaming," he said. "Not a fucking sound. I felt bad I didn't let you come, and then I remembered how much you seem to like guns. You like this?" With a final push, he had the barrel fully inside her. Leaning over her until his face was inches away from hers, he began to fuck her with the gun, slow and hard. "Don't ever let me catch you touching anything that doesn't belong to you around here, ever again," he said. "The next time you have to learn a lesson about that, this happens again, in front of everyone. And ask yourself if I'm going to want you anymore, after they've all seen you like this." He increased the speed of his thrusts and felt her climax build, more out of pain and shame than anything else. "You like guns?" he whispered again. "Then let it happen, baby." He kept his hand over her mouth until he was sure she was done making noise, his other hand with the gun firmly inside her as deep as it would go, and his body pressed against hers to catch every shudder. How the fuck was it possible, he wondered, for this just to keep getting better?

-0-

Clay hung around until he saw Jax leave the clubhouse. He had to laugh as he saw the way Jax's shoulders and jaw were set. _Things must not have worked out the way you thought, huh? _ _Well, better luck next time. _He was still waiting to hear from Chibs about the fight bust, and hoped V. hadn't done something to fuck things up. In the meantime, he'd go see what Gemma was doing.

What Gemma was doing, as it turned out, was sitting in the office staring into the space ahead of her. He'd learned to mistrust that look, which she brought out only for bad news. With a groan, he sat down heavily in V's empty chair. "What now?" he asked her.

She looked startled, like he'd interrupted her train of thought. "What do you think of that girl?" she asked.

"Tig's girl?" When she nodded, he went on. "I'll be honest with you, I don't like it. Nothing but trouble, and we've got enough of that with V. Sooner she's out of here, the happier I'll be."

Gemma nodded, seeming to make a decision. "Might not be the smartest idea cutting her loose," she said slowly. "Luanne just left. Seems Otto knows some guy in Stockton claims Tig shot his partner, some AB crank dealer, up in Humboldt, a few years back."

"This fuckin' shit again?" Clay could barely contain his disgust. "Of all the shit Tigger's been up to over the years, why the fuck does this keep coming up all of a sudden?"

Gemma sighed heavily. "He ever tell you what happened up there?"

Clay shrugged. "It was fuckin' ages ago. Typical clusterfuck. He's up there on the way back from Tacoma, stops in to bang a hooker, turns out the bitch is running a scam and tries to knock him out and have her pimp rip him off. Tig shoots the pimp, knocks the whore around for good measure, cuts out, and calls _me_ to make it all better. Not sure I've got all the details right, but that's about all I can tell you."

"Let me fill in the blanks for you," Gemma said. "The hooker had a daughter, saw the whole thing. Rode off on the back of her mom's killer's bike, nobody's seen her since." She looked up, and met Clay's eyes. Her own were cold and dark.

"Aisha," he said. It wasn't a question.

She nodded anyway.

"Shit," Clay exploded. "He lied to me about this! He fuckin' lied to me! Stood right there when I asked him if there was anything on this girl to tie him to this shit Stahl was trying to dig up, and he lied right in my fuckin' face about it!"

Gemma looked at Clay, her face dark and serious. "This isn't like him, Clay. This isn't what Tig does."

Clay made a disgusted sound. "What he does? How do I know what the fuck he does? This shit was five fuckin' years ago and he's never told me... I'm supposed to think I know him, now?"

Gemma looked back up at Clay. "There's really only one way to find out," she said. "To find out if he's still with us."

Clay nodded, and tossed his cigar into the ashtray, hauling himself to his feet. "It's not something I like to do," he said. "She's a kid, after all. But I have to protect my club. And Tig could go down forever over this one. He's not thinking straight." He sighed and headed out the door. "I'll take care of it."

-0-

Aisha woke up wrapped in Tig's sheet. She could tell she hadn't been sleeping long, but he'd showered and dressed while she was passed out, and now he stood over her, waking her with a quick shake of the shoulder. "I'm going to be heading out in a bit," he said, "not sure for how long. You need anything?"

She shook her head. "Can I stay in here?"

He playfully smacked her on the side of the head. "Sure. But I don't think anyone's gonna be rubbing up on you anymore, you go out there. Now that you pulled that lunatic stunt with Jax's gun."

She sat up. "Do you want to name me _one_ other way, just _one_, that that was going to end with my walking out of there?"

He thought it over. He had to admit, she had a point. He wasn't exactly ready to listen to reason right then.

"Also," she said, "it didn't seem like a bad idea to get it over with as far as the guys were concerned. One of them was going to try it eventually, right? This way, it's taken care of."

He grinned at her. "You're pretty full of surprises, today," he said. "Got it all figured out?" He looked down at her, considering it, then opened his door and looked out. The prospect was putting things away behind the bar. He'd been giving her puppy-dog eyes last night, hadn't he? "Hey, Sack!" he yelled. "Get in here."

As the prospect walked through Tig's half-open door, he was met with the sight of Tig, dressed to leave, standing in front of the kneeling Aisha with his gun in her mouth. "I gotta go," Tig said cheerfully. "And I don't want to have to worry about anything while I'm gone. So I thought, you know, I should tell you, anything you try with her is going to blow back on her in ways you don't even want to imagine. And you'll have to live with that. You understand me?"

Kip backed towards the door. "Sure, man," he said. "I get it."

Tig straightened up and took the gun out of Aisha's mouth. "Good!" he said. He tossed the gun onto the bed. "Clean that off," he told her. "That shit's not good for the metal."

Following Kip out, Tig started out the clubhouse door, then turned around and came back to the bar. His voice, when he addressed Kip, was low and concerned. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea, back there," he said.

Kip nodded quickly. "Yeah, of course not, man."

Tig fixed him with a look. "She's got a small mouth, you know? The sight, it knocks against her teeth if I hold the gun right." He looked at the prospect to make sure he understood. "That's the only time it's OK to hold a gun like that. Any other situation? That sideways gangsta grip bullshit's for kids who watch too much TV." He nodded at the prospect. "Remember that."

Kip swallowed. "Yeah, man. I will."


	18. Chapter 18

_I realize these are a lot of updates. I kind of got addicted to writing this-so I'd really, really, really appreciate some feedback on the story, since a lot has changed in a short time, and some pretty serious things are happening. I kind of need to re-state here that this story is exactly as advertised... it's dark, and it might not be for everyone. WIth that in mind, I'd really really really like to know what y'all think!_

Chapter 18

Clay didn't say a word to Tig until they'd gotten out of Charming, and Tig wasn't quite sure what to make of it. When Clay finally pulled off the road and gestured for Tig to follow, in the weed-choked parking lot of an abandoned Texaco station on the highway, Tig realized that it was a bullshit trumped-up errand that had got him out there, and started to wonder what the fuck was going on.

Clay didn't talk for a moment, pacing and lighting a cigar. Then he looked up at Tig. "You're supposed to be my rock," he said. "My right-hand guy."

Tig nodded. "I am. What are you-"

Clay exploded into rage at him. "Then why the _fuck _are you lying to me about hiding some kid? Some kid that ties you to a five-year-old murder? Fuckin' answer me that!"

Tig shut his eyes and shook his head. "Listen, I don't know what you heard, Clay, but she doesn't tie me to shit. If there's one thing I'm sure of, is that Aisha's never gonna rat, ok?"

Tig hadn't thought it was possible for Clay to get any angrier. At this point, his club president seemed too furious to speak, until he finally grabbed Tig by his collar and seemed to be forcing the words out. "You—you're a fuckin' idiot, you know that? _She doesn't have to fuckin' ra_t, asshole! All she has to do is _exist_! If she's with you, she ties you to a fucking double murder! She proves you were there. You hidin' her all those years, that's... that's statutory, hell, it's probably _kidnapping_."

Tig felt himself starting to panic a bit, "Clay," he said, holding his hands out in a calm-down gesture, "you're lookin' at this all wrong. Nobody knows she's here..."

"Fuckin' _everybody_ knows she's here!" Clay yelled. Then he calmed down, took a breath, and fixed Tig with a stare colder than any Tig could remember. "Let me ask you one question, Tig, and you answer this shit honestly. You lie to me, I find out, we're done. That's you, done with this MC."

Tig felt himself grow pale. "What the fuck are you saying?" he asked.

"You think that's shit I say lightly? You think I like having to take it there, just to get a straight answer out of you, you've been lying to me so goddamn much?"

Tig shook his head. "Just fuckin' ask, man. Whatever it is, you'll get the truth from me."

Clay looked piercingly at him. "Fine. Here's my question. Was _she_ the reason Stahl held you longer? Did she want to ask you questions about this girl?"

Backed into a corner, Tig nodded.

"And Humboldt? The murder? Stahl ask you about that too?"

Tig nodded again.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Clay screamed. "You were gonna tell me about this, _when_? Bring the girl into _my _club, lie to my fuckin' face about her, what were you gonna do, wait until the feds were breaking the door down with a warrant?"

Tig sat down heavily on the edge of the concrete island where the derelict gas pumps were rusted over. He put his face in his hands. There wasn't any getting away from this. He couldn't hide her anymore.

Clay waited a moment for Tig to look up, and when his sergeant-at-arms squinted at him and nodded, Clay looked satisfied. He knew that look on Tig. It meant he was ready to take some action. "You're gonna take care of this?" he asked. "I can have someone else do it."

Tig shook his head. "No," he said. "It's gotta be me." When Clay looked at him dubiously, he stood up. "I _want_ to do this," he said. "Trust me. It's not like it's never crossed my mind before."

Clay shook his head. "Whatever gets you through it. Not like she's your old lady, right?"

Tig shook his head and made a derisive sound in his throat.

"Right," Clay said. "Then get moving on this. Hey!" he said, as Tig was headed back to his bike. "You understand, that girl can't _ever_ be able to testify against you. You get that, right? You try to hide her, wherever she is, if she's alive, you're not safe. You understand?"

Tig smiled at him. "I'm gonna fix the problem," he said. "Right now."

-0-

When he got back to the clubhouse, Aisha was alone. He'd managed to tell her to grab a couple of her dresses—he liked that white one she had, it made her look different from the other women he knew—and she'd showered again, changed into one, and pulled her hair up out of her way. She was looking through some of the cabinets in the kitchen, getting a feel for the place. She was too short to reach the top shelves, and he saw her pull herself up onto the counter, wincing slightly. He couldn't help but smile. She was going to be sore for a week.

_Kid's not going to make it another week, _he thought, remembering the reason he'd come back. He walked up behind her and pulled her backwards, off-balance, catching her in his arms. The second she felt his touch she went with it, letting go completely. _Jesus Christ, _ he thought, _is this what it's going to be like, killing her? _Would she just let it happen, following his lead? He couldn't even imagine what that might feel like, and he felt himself getting hard again, and suddenly he was shoving her dress around her hips and fumbling with his belt. _Maybe I'll make her ask for it, _he thought. _She wants to prove how loyal she is, I'll make her beg for the bullet that kills her. _He pushed her back onto the counter, her legs around his waist, and drove himself into her. _This, first. Just this._ He could think about the rest of it later.

"Let go," he told her. "Let me feel you come, let me hear it." As soon as he started speaking, he felt her body start to take over, her muscles tensing to obey him, and she wrapped her legs more tightly around him and clung to him, her face pressed against his chest. With both arms, he crushed her against him. Christ, she was so fucking small. As he came, he put a hand around her throat. I_t would be so easy. Just like that. Why not? She was happy._ He tightened his grip, thumb against her windpipe, but as he started to relax, he let go. _Not yet,_ he told himself. He'd rather be able to see her eyes.

When he was done, he set her back on the counter and turned away, doing up his pants and pulling himself together. "There's some beef with Clay over that thing that happened today," he said casually. "Might be best to get you out of his way for day or two. What do you think?"

She looked meditative, and nodded. "Whatever you want. I really didn't want to cause you any trouble."

He looked at her, and suddenly put his hands on her hips and kissed her. "I know that," he said. "Don't you think I know that?" He tilted her chin upwards and smiled at her. "Come on," he said. "Let's get away from this place for a while. When was the last time I took you somewhere, right?"

-0-

When Clay got back to the clubhouse, the guys were still joking about Tig's taking Aisha away for the weekend. Even Jax seemed to have climbed out of whatever mood she'd gotten him in, and was laughing with the rest of them. "Girl is straight up _crazy_," he said almost admiringly. "Worse than V, I swear to God."

Clay stomped through the room angrily. "Where the fuck _are_ Chibs and V? They're supposed to be back with the fuckin' Nazi's story. They better not be dumping a body, that's all I need today."

Jax glared at him. "What the fuck do you mean, Chibs and V? _What did you have her do_?"

Clay let himself smile, savoring one of the few enjoyable moments this shit day had offered him. "V's doing some work for the club," he said. "Kind of... associate status, maybe?" He grinned at Jax.

"Bullshit," Jax said. "I don't remember _voting_ on that, Clay."

"Nothing to vote on," Clay snapped. "I made a decision. We're short-handed. I told Chibs to keep her on a tight leash." He might not have thrown in the last sentence if the entire day hadn't been pissing him off so bad, but the mood he was in, it made him feel a little better to see Jax storm off.

Bobby walked over to him, and the watched Jax go. "Let him be," Bobby said. "He had some kind of little run-in with Tig's girl this morning... I guess Tig caught him rubbing up on her and she nearly took him out with his own gun." Bobby snickered. "Then she handed the gun right back to Tig and told him to pull the trigger if he thought she'd ever fuck him over like that. I shudder to think what that bitch is gonna be like when she's Gemma's age."

Clay grunted. Last thing he wanted to hear about right now.

Bobby continued. "I gotta say, I never saw this coming," he said. "Couldn't picture Tigger with an old lady, or whatever the fuck she is, but man, I have never seen him like this. Walked in on him fucking her right here, he looked like he was having a spiritual awakening." Bobby snickered some more, and ran his hand over the spot on the counter where Aisha's ass had been. "And now he just takes off, says he's taking her away for the weekend? What the fuck is that supposed to be about? Asks me to call that place up in Tahoe I did that show, even. _Tig_. Takin' a fuckin' teenage girl on _vacation_." He laughed again. "I been smokin' too much, I think."

Clay looked at him. Something about this whole thing was not sitting well. "That right? He taking her up to Tahoe?"

"Booked it and everything."

Clay cursed to himself. Maybe, probably, the bastard just wanted to drag it out, take his time with it, get all Dexter when he killed his little girlfriend or whatever. But this didn't sound like that, this sounded, God help him, _sweet_. The chance that he was going to try to get that girl out of California was starting to look more and more likely. "I gotta go make a phone call," he said, and stomped off.

He made sure he was far enough away that none of the guys could hear him, and dialed a number on his prepaid. Happy picked up on the second ring. "Hey."

"Hap, it's Clay. I need you to do me a favor and take care of something in Tahoe, ok? Think you can get up there by tonight?"

"Don't see why not," Hap said in his raspy voice. "Shouldn't be a problem."

Clay felt calmer. He was going to get this fucking _done_, and he'd deal with Tig about it later.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19:

"You don't have to tell me all this," Happy said. It was probably the most complicated backstory he'd ever gotten on a single hit; Clay seemed determined to justify this one, to himself if nothing else.

"I want you to know what you're getting yourself into with Tig," Clay said, "and I want you to understand that this charter doesn't just kill women. This is a situation. There's no way this girl being alive is going to lead to anything other than Tig going away for good." _One way or another, _Clay thought. _Because damned if I know what's happening with him since he killed Donna. Maybe before that. _

Happy didn't particularly care what rationale Clay was using to keep SAMCRO's hands clean. He knew that Tig, much like himself, functioned as the club's hidden unconscious, the place where they kept the things they didn't like to look at about themselves. Sometimes he could sense, underneath way the rest of the club members dealt with them, an unease in the interactions. The story Clay was telling him didn't fit in with what he'd observed about Tig—Clay was reacting to the presence of this girl as if she was something new, but from the sound of the story she'd been there for years, and was hardly going to be some new influence, but was just a part of the Tig they all knew. Maybe that was it—Clay didn't want the girl dead as much as he wanted to kill the idea that he hadn't really known Tig all along, that there were things going on in his club that he just didn't see.

Or maybe it was as simple as Clay made it sound. The girl tied Tig to a murder—more as evidence than as a witness. Tig was too caught up in fucking her to think straight about what needed to be done.

Again, Happy shook his head. He didn't fucking buy it. Tig had kept her in some apartment for _years_. He could have fucked her until he was sick of her several times over, nothing had been stopping him. No, this wasn't like killing a man's lover or his old lady—that was nothing. This was like breaking into Tig's room and breaking his things, fucking with something that belonged to him. Happy found himself hoping that he'd get there and the girl would be dead already, because killing a person was one thing, but this was feeling dangerously like destroying someone's property.

As the evening wore on, though, he felt himself start to relax, felt the familiar calm coming over him. The closer it got, the less it really mattered to him why. By the time he was getting ready to leave, he'd completely forgotten his wish that Tig would have taken care of it already, and was looking forward to quickly and efficiently fixing the problem. But damn it, he was still curious. He thought about asking V, but she looked like she had her hands full.

-0-

Aisha held onto Tig as the bike went hurtling into the evening. After sunset, the temperature dropped, and the wind on the back of the bike didn't make it any warmer. She was starting to realize that plans were really only something that you could count on if you were alive, and right now, she couldn't think of any way to make things come out right. Him killing her had been something she hadn't counted on.

She wondered, briefly, if there might be some way of getting word to V., but then she pressed herself against the leather of Tig's back and just gave herself over to being there. He'd dropped the pretense almost as soon as they'd gotten off the Teller-Morrow lot, and the couple of times they'd stopped he'd ignored her tentative questions completely. Nobody watching the way he marched her back to the bike after they'd stopped for a rest as anything romantic, or playful, or even in the vein of the closeness they'd shared that afternoon. _I'm not a prisoner, _she reminded herself. _I'm not. I'm really not._ She'd known him cold and businesslike before—hell, it was most of what she knew—but this was entirely different. He had the look of someone doing a job—getting something done. She knew that he did most of his work on blind action, but she'd never really seen what that looked like engaged.

She was surprised when it turned out that they actually seemed to be going where he said they were going. As he pulled the bike into the hotel lot and got off, he finally spoke to her.

"Don't talk, don't argue, don't ask me any more fucking questions, and if I see you cry I swear to fucking God I'll leave you to bleed out from a gut shot with your mouth taped shut in a supply closet. Are we clear?"

She nodded.

"I want you to know," he said, "that I'm only doing what I have to do here. It's not you, and it's not me, it just the way circumstances turned out. It's not the way I would have wanted things."

She nodded again, and he took her shoulder roughly and marched her into the lobby of the hotel.

-0-

She woke up on the bathroom floor and tried to remember what had happened.

Before trying to get up, she did a brief check of where she stood physically, but realized that she wasn't quite ready to deal with the amount of damage she thought she might have taken. Here back was a searing center of agony. Her lip was split, and seemed to have recently stopped bleeding. She was pretty sure her ribs were broken again, as were two of the fingers on her left hand. She tried to move them, and gasped. The middle and ring finger we both broken cleanly, and part of her remembered him taking hold of her hand and calmly and methodically... _no. Not yet. _

She managed to pull herself up the bathroom sink, a typical showy mid-range hotel bathroom with faux-marble formica, a round bathtub with jets (she forced herself to look away as she saw the blood smeared on the side, the razor dropped casually in the sink), and a wide mirror taking up half the wall. She stood up and took a look.

Her face wasn't actually that bad. Even her other injuries seemed to be deliberate, not the result of a frenzied beating but his need, the night before, to break her, to see how much she could take. She looked at herself, and found herself smiling a bit. She was wearing one of his shirts, and on the back of her right shoulder the shirt was soaked with blood, most of which had stuck to her. She wasn't ready to deal with that right now, or to think about what had happened.

She wondered if he was sleeping, or if he'd gone out. He'd be back, she knew. She ran some cold water over her face, and brushed the fingers of her good hand through her hair, giving it up as hopeless.

This was all right. She could do this.

She opened the door to the bathroom and stepped into the room, its cheap seventies décor lit up with the morning sun. For a moment, her eyes had trouble adjusting, and then her eyes met Happy's, where he stood near the window, with the gun in his hand, waiting for her.

"Oh," she said. Without thinking much about what she was doing, she walked slowly over to him, and sat carefully down in the chair across from him, wincing at her ribs and... well, everything. She closed her eyes for a second, and then looked back at him. He was still staring at her.

"Talk."

She tried to clear her throat, found herself wiping blood on her sleeve. "What do you want me to say?"

He shrugged. "I figured there was something. There's something here that doesn't make sense, I was hoping you could let me know why I'm here and he's not. Or maybe you want to give a message. Or whatever. I made good time. I have a minute or two, and you're not going to do anything stupid, looks like."

She shook her head. "No. I understand. I..." she paused to wipe the blood off her lip again. Every time she spoke, it seemed to happen again. "I'm... look, I'm really sorry, but could I have some water?"

He looked surprised, and thought about it for a second, then reached into the mini-fridge and tossed her a bottle of water. She tried to hold it between her knees and open it with her good hand, but it wasn't working so well, and he impatiently grabbed it from her, twisted the cap off, and handed it back. She took a drink, trying not to swallow too much blood, and looked back at him.

"There was a plan," she said. "Me being alive, that was the good part. It was important. The plan wasn't going to work otherwise." She shook her head.

He looked down at her. "Think you can tell me, real quick, what that was?" he asked.

She nodded, then shook her head. Nodded. "Why are you here?"

He gave her a look.

"Oh," she said. "No I don't mean _why. _I mean why _you_? Did he... leave? And ask you to do this?"

He looked down at her. Jesus, the kid thought he'd walked out and left her there to die. He noted for a second that she didn't seem terribly surprised. _I was right,_ he thought. _Clay doesn't really get what's going on here. _For that matter, neither did he, but it was time to end this. He clicked the safety off, and saw her eyes follow the gun. He couldn't really read them. "You want to watch?" he found himself asking.

She looked thoughtful. "Kinda, yeah. Is that okay?"

He put the gun to her head and looked down at her. "It wasn't him," he said. "You should know that. It was Clay. Clay's doing this to protect him, though. That make it OK with you?"

She closed her eyes. "Fuck," she said. Then, for the first time, Happy saw something he recognized. He'd seen a fair number of people try to argue for their lives. It got so you could almost taste it. And as he stood there, he saw her slowly pull herself together, sit up a bit (Jesus, she was beat up) and lean forward, getting ready to argue her case.

"If that's why," she said, "then you should know that there's a lot less protection, and a lot more tying him to that murder, with me dead than alive. It's not... it's going to be okay. It's not time to worry yet. But I don't know what I can do, you know, if I'm dead." She looked at him. "I know this is your job, but if that's why, do you think you might... let me explain?"

She explained quickly and calmly, stealing occasional sips of the water. At a certain point, he nodded, and held up his hand. "I think I understand. You're willing to do that for him?"

Despite the fact that he still held a gun on her, she gave him a look, holding up her broken fingers. "Yeah," she said. "yeah, I think I'm okay with it."

He nodded again, raising an eyebrow. "Here's what's going to happen," he said. "You seem to me like someone who does what she's told, is that right?"

She nodded.

"You're going to sit right there," he said, "and I'm going to make a phone call. If I get through, I'm going to tell Clay what you told me. I'm not going to tell him that you know it was him set this up. We'll leave it a mystery. Based on what you've said, I think you've got maybe a thirty percent chance he calls this off, depending on what kind of mood he's in. If it goes your way, you've got a secret to keep, about this whole thing. It doesn't go your way, we stick with plan A."


	20. Chapter 20

_OK, some of the feedback I got from a couple of people who saw this chapter before I published were that it was "too dark." So I'm putting that warning out there. Personally, I find that writing angsty romance between a man who fucks corpses and a girl who stepped over the body of her dead mother to ride off with the man who'd beaten her to death is going to tend in that direction. But maybe it's me._

She'd passed out while he was making the cuts in her back. He'd left her there, and gone out to get a drink and some air, and somehow that had turned into a fight in a local bar that he didn't even remember having started. Now, he was surprised to see it was mid-morning as he rode back to the hotel. He wasn't sure what she'd do when she woke up, or how much of the night before she would even remember.

From the moment he'd gotten her back up to the room after they'd gone out, things had been completely fucking perfect. You wished for nights like that, and tried to make shadows of them happen whenever you could, he thought, but last night had been something different. That difference, he guessed, had something to do with knowing that she needed it to be that way as badly as he did. Pleasing him was something she craved, but the feeling of his complete control over her life was the thing that he sensed had kept her there all this time, the thing that made her look at him that way. And last night, she'd felt that control be literally life-or-death.

Some time before they got there, he realized that she was absolutely convinced he was going to kill her. And it wasn't that he minded, but he couldn't help pushing on that to see where it was going to take her.

He gave her more than one opportunity to get away from him, on the way up there and throughout the night. She'd stayed, silent as he told her to be, and terrified, with that desperately calculating look that she thought she hid. It wasn't the sort of manipulative look he'd come to expect on a bitch's face, but something else. Whatever instinct of self-preservation that had kicked in on an animal level and kept her alive while she was growing up, that made it so that she could look at two dead bodies, take it in, and then look up and ask him for a ride out of there. It was a split-second weighing of options and utter commitment to a decision that he remembered from his time in the Corps. Having decided she was with him, she was going to see that through to the end—at times, her face almost seemed angry when she caught him looking at her, as if to say _did you seriously think I was going to back out the second it got scary?_

There was something else, of course. He didn't even know if she knew it. Part of her _wanted_ it. Part of her was _excited._

And that was the thing that turned this from being a simple business trip to clear up a problem, to a mission to see how far he could take her before she wouldn't want it anymore—a grasping search for the point at which the need and adoration in her eyes would shut off, and he'd hit that wall where they all just recoiled from him. They always came back—he'd push them just a little bit past that point, and back off, and they'd always come back, without fail—but he'd have lost interest. It didn't take more than that look flaring up, what he jokingly thought of as the _get me out of here_ look. In that one moment, they were suddenly boring. Hurt his fucking feelings a bit too, if he had to come right out with it.

She didn't do that. She _never _did that. The whole evening, she'd been convinced he was going to put a bullet in her head at any moment. Every time they were somewhere nobody could see it, she got that waiting look, and after a while it was like they were flirting or something, it was the way it was when he fucked her, her eyes looking at him like _now? _and his own saying _not yet._

So when they finally got back to the hotel that night, the first thing he'd done, after telling her with a gesture that he wanted the dress off, was reach tenderly for her hand, hold it in his, and then slowly and deliberately break one of her fingers. And then, you know, another one, but that was really just because it had been so good the first time.

It was something he knew how to do, just a simple trick when you needed information, but he made sure she could see that he didn't want anything except to watch her feel it, that there wasn't any way out of this. She didn't have a hope in hell of making it any easier. And he knew she wouldn't want one anyway.

He knew he'd talked to her, but most of their communication seemed to take place in that unspoken language where she told him how happy she was that she could feel this for him and he made her tell him that again and again, thank him for letting her be there. There was a moment that he could remember telling her, as he sank the razor into her skin for the second time he ever had, that she'd been with him so long, and from such a young age, that she'd never know if she was who she thought she was, or thing that he'd made her into. He knew when he spoke that he was lying. Her life before him, her life after, all of it had played a part, but she was like him, some part of her was different before any of that had ever happened.

And then she'd finally blacked out, and he'd lay her down on the floor, walked back into the room, and then grabbed the card key and walked out, thinking he'd just take a walk and clear his head. Try to work out how he was going to square things with Clay. Maybe get a drink. Process things. He grinned, remembering the fight. That had certainly helped. Not that it hadn't left him the worse for wear. The entire night had, when he thought about it. Aisha had bitten the _hell_ out of his shoulder.

He rounded the corner and parked his bike, then looked up the street and froze. Half a block away, a bike he recognized was parked under a streetlight. It was Happy's.

Tig started up to the room as quickly as he could. He could at least be there, maybe, at the end, or right after.

-0-

"Shit, honey, _Jax _knows about this?" Gemma's voice was fiercely protective. "He can't understand somethin' like this, Clay. He won't."

"I didn't fuckin' tell him," Clay growled. "His new best friend Hale called him up with the full biography of the girl, and he put two and two together when he saw Happy's bike here and the girl gone."

Gemma looked at him, disturbed. "You didn't tell him, did you?" She fought to meet his gaze, which was turned away from her. "He had his suspicions, but you didn't go confirming 'em for him, Clay, did you?"

Clay looked away.

Gemma put her hands on his shoulders, speaking as entreatingly as she ever did. "Listen to me. If he starts to think that's what we're about, starts to think this is what the club has turned into... this, on top of Donna-"

"I'm done hearing about Donna!" Clay yelled, sending the breakfast dishes off the table with a sweep of his arm. The two of them stared at each other silently over the wreckage, until Clay leaned into Gemma's face. He spoke defiantly, punctuating each word with his finger pointed at her. "That's all, do you hear me? I'm through being told how I should handle things. This thing? It's done. Probably happened a couple of hours ago. So you go over to Jax's, smooth things over, help him with the baby... but maybe while you're there you might want to remind him who he owes all of this to. Not Donna. Not that girl. Not his father." Clay tapped himself on the chest. "Me." He looked at her. "You go over there, then, and make sure he knows that."

Gemma stared at him silently, then reached down and picked up her car keys from the midst of the broken crockery and breakfast remains. She shook them off, meeting Clay's eyes without the slightest sign of bother or even acknowledging the mess, turned her back on him, and left.

Clay waited until she was gone, then kicked her chair across the everyone planning to give him shit today?

At that moment, his cell rang. He could feel his blood pressure calm down slightly as he recognized the number of Happy's prepaid. At least one thing could be counted on to go according to plan.

-0-

It took Hap about four times as long to explain the situation to Clay as it had taken Aisha to explain it to him, and reflected that he was pretty fucking glad, all things considered, that he wasn't having to do it with a gun to his head like she had.

Clay was yelling about how Happy'd been the one guy he trusted not to get caught up in this girl's bullshit. "Who knows what the fuck he did to her head, keepin' her locked up all those years," Clay bellowed, "but the girl is _not fuckin' normal_. Now I'm supposed to listen to her? _You're _fuckin' listening to her?"

Happy waited for the yelling to stop. "Hey, Prez, I'm the messenger," he said. "It can go either way as far as I'm concerned." Personally, he couldn't really think of another way to keep Tig's hands clean of that murder—probably one of the most pointless and spur-of-the-moment he'd committed—than the one she'd come up with, but it wasn't his look-out. He figured he was doing his good deed for the day.

Clay continued muttering about how no nineteen-year-old who fucked _Tig_, for fuck's sake, was going to force his hand. Happy waited until he'd calmed down and subsided into a grumbling silence. "So what do you want me to do here?" he asked. "It's no problem for me either way. You say go, I finish it. You want me to bring 'em back, I'll come up with another reason I'm here, and he doesn't have to know."

Clay was silent for a minute. "I told him to do it," he said. "Think there's any chance of that?"

Happy thought about the way the girl had been injured. Maybe nobody else could have seen it, but he could tell she didn't have a single unnecessary mark on her. Everything had been deliberate. More important, she was just this side of needing a doctor, which told him all he needed to know. He exhaled. "No,' he said. "I gotta say, I don't think he's gonna do it. Think he plans on keeping her around."

Clay sighed heavily. "Yeah. Guess I wouldn't have called you in if I didn't already know that."

"If it means anything, I don't think he was takin' off with her," Happy said. "I know him. He was gonna try to make this right with you."

Clay was silent for a minute. "OK," he said finally. "Gemma's on me about this thing anyway, Jax too. Let it go. We'll do this _her _way, God help me. But bring 'em down with you... I don't want Tig to get any funny ideas about trying to dye her hair and change her name and stick her someplace. If this whole thing you're telling me is true, she stays real, real close until this thing blows over."

In the other room, Aisha wished she could hear what Clay was saying, but guessed that in the end it wouldn't make that much of a difference. She was starting to remember some things about the night before and... well, it was something she hoped she'd get a chance to sit and think about, at more length, later.

Simultaneously, she heard Happy click his phone shut behind her, and the card key click in the lock. Closing her eyes tight, hoping that there wasn't going to be any trouble that ended up with him getting shot, she listened. Door opening. Boots, she could hear even on the carpet. Happy lowering the gun. She opened her eyes.

Tig was looking at her, completely expressionless. If he was surprised to see her still alive, he didn't let on. When she opened her eyes, he was looking her over coldly, then he turned back to Happy, and gave him a look of completely theatrical polite confusion. "I'm sorry," he said. "Was I interrupting something you had going on here?"

Happy gave him a _don't break my balls_ look. "Clay asked me to come up, tell you guys he needed you back down there, ride with you."

"Clay forgot how to dial a cellphone?" Tig asked, slightly enjoying this and realizing he was still a bit buzzed.

They looked at each other, and Happy stifled a short laugh and holstered the gun. "Hey, whatever it is, man. It's good to see you."

Tig nodded, looking around for anything he might have brought in last night that he wouldn't have wanted Happy to get a look at. Thankfully, he'd packed everything they had with them into a bag small enough for Aisha to carry. "Nice to see her in one piece, Hap" he said as he rummaged through the bag for a cigarette. He didn't smoke as often as the other guys, but this was the kind of morning that called for it.

"Hey, looks like I'm not the one that put that in question," Happy said, taking the cigarette Tig offered and leaning against the wall. Aisha couldn't entirely stifle a laugh. Happy couldn't say he blamed her—bitch had probably cheated death a few times, but this was probably the closest she'd ever come. He'd seen people start laughing like maniacs, crying, all sorts of shit. She looked pretty chill, all things considered.

Tig looked at him. "Pretty sure I've got a good idea what went on up here," he said, "but as it looks like we're headed back down and everything's cool, I don't think I need to think about it anymore." He looked over to Aisha, and the two of them seemed about to start laughing. "His gun," he said, pointing at her, "better not have been _anywhere _but against your head. I hope I've made that fucking clear."

Under the circumstances, with her two broken fingers and death looking like a certainty five minutes before, Hap thought it was pretty ballsy of her to roll her eyes at Tig like that. All things considered. But whatever... he was doing a job. It would be nice to have some company on the ride down, though.


	21. Chapter 21

_Must I beg for more feedback? Really? Is that how it is? _

_Things are starting to get going, we're heading towards the end of this thing. Please do let me know what you think!_

Chapter 21

After leaving her at the clubhouse, Tig and Happy had disappeared on an errand of Clay's. It wasn't soon enough to avoid Jax, who'd stopped in front of Tig as they were leaving and put a hand up on the door, giving him a cold, unflinching stare. The joking conversation of the guys had stopped suddenly, with a dangerous uncertainty taking it's place. Jax's eyes flashed into the room, noting the presence of Aisha, but his stare didn't get any less confrontational.

Tig met Jax's look without backing down, settling his cold, blue eyes on the younger man's face. A derisive, tight half-smile began to cross Jax's face, and at the sight of it, Tig started to move forward slightly, his own expression becoming eager.

"C'mon, man," Happy said, stepping in front of Tig. "Not today. Enough excitement already."

Tig didn't look away from Jax's face. "You have something you want to say to me?"

With a smirk and a disgusted shake of the head, Jax pushed himself away from the doorframe and started to walk away. "Nah," he said. "Nothin' you're gonna hear."

As the two men left, Jax walked back into the clubhouse, where Chibs and Aisha were sitting on the couch, him taping up the fingers of her left hand. That meant V was here, he guessed, hating himself for linking them in his mind like that. "Hey," he said to Aisha, noticing what had happened to her with some shock. Had Tig or Hap gotten started on her, before someone's mind had changed about the whole thing? "How're you feeling?" he asked her, unable to imagine what she might be thinking right then.

She looked up at him and smiled, gesturing to Chibs and her hand. "Glad to be a rightie." she said. Jax could sense something different about her. Couldn't put his finger on it, and it wasn't the same defiance she'd had after pulling his gun on him. It was more like she was telling him she had a right to be there.

Chibs snorted. "She feels like someone who just rode down from Tahoe on the back of a bike with two broken fingers and a cracked rib," he remarked. "She needs to take something for the pain, and get some sleep. Like Hap said, it's enough excitement."

-0-

Aisha woke up in his bed, still in disarray from her last time there. Her shoulder was really killing her, but the hand, which had been the worst thing, had actually settled down to a dull ache. She remembered the Scottish one who'd taped her up, she still didn't know his name, telling her she had to sleep. She hadn't taken anything he'd offered, but she felt heavy and confused and tired nonetheless.

_I'll get some water, _she decided, _and then go back to sleep. _If there was anything she'd learned over the years it was to sleep while she could, and besides, she didn't even feel like she could keep her eyes open longer than a minute, anyway.

She was running cold water into a coffee mug when she felt someone behind her. "Remind me," said a woman's voice, "that if they ever drop the bomb, you're who I want to be standin' next to."

She turned around to see Gemma, cigarette in hand. Aside from her, the place seemed to be empty. Aisha was still frightened of the woman, but after the bald guy with the tattoos, anything else was really just a question of degree. "Why's that?" she asked.

Gemma smirked a bit. "Because you," she said, "have all the luck in the world."

Aisha nodded a bit at that. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I guess that's true."

An almost unwilling concern flickered at the back of Gemma's eyes. "How're you doing?" she asked suddenly.

Aisha thought about it. "I don't know," she said. "Tired. Where'd they all go?"

"Club business," Gemma said. "I came by to ask you if you could come over and give me some help tomorrow afternoon. Planning to have a few people over, don't have quite enough hands."

Aisha nodded, taking the overture for what it was. "I can't always call my time my own," she said, giving Gemma a look that Gemma had no trouble interpreting, "but I'm pretty sure it would be fine."

Gemma nodded and smiled a bit. "Well, then," she said, exhaling smoke sharply, "that'll be fun. You should go back to sleep. Everything's going to be fine."

Aisha obediently set down the cup and went back to Tig's room. Gemma kept watching her as she went. She wasn't sure what to think about this, but looked at another way, it might not be as bad as she'd first thought. After all, the past few years had been good ones with Tig as Clay's right hand. He'd been focused, steady. If this girl had been around all that time, some of that had to be due to her, even if just as a place to put some of that perpetual energy the man walked around practically crackling with. If she and Clay could keep an eye on the girl, well... it might just bring Tig in all that much closer.

-0-

Tig looked around as soon as he got into the clubhouse. He'd hoped to see Clay, but there was apparently some sort of sit-down planned now that V had softened up the Nords a bit (he had to suppress a chuckle at that one, he was kind of sorry he'd missed it). Bobby was off someplace, and the only one hanging around was the Prospect. It wouldn't be, he reflected, a bad time to deal with Aisha.

He felt a hand on his arm as he headed towards the door of his room, and turned around. He'd thought Happy had split off after they parked. Instead, he stood there, shaking his head. "Let her sleep," he said.

Tig stopped. If anyone else had said it, Jax, or Bobby, or V... well, he'd probably have had to haul her out of the room and put her to work in front of them, and he might have thrown a punch for good measure. Happy speaking up, though, was different. Also, he thought he had an idea of what Hap was getting at. "You think?" he asked.

"Yeah. That sort of thing stays with you a while. I've seen it before." he shook his head again. "I mean it. Let her sleep."

Happy grabbed a couple of beers, and the two sat down on the couches. They were silent for a second, then Tig whipped his head around. "Hey, Sack," he snapped. "Get the fuck out of here."

After Half-Sack had left, Tig leaned back and rubbed his face with his hands. "I don't know, man," he said. "I'm still not sure where Clay stands on all of this."

"Clay's fine," Happy said. He paused for a couple of minutes, then leaned forward. "OK, I gotta ask," he said.

"What?" Tig looked confused. "The fingers?"

Happy snorted and shook his head. "Not that. The fingers I get." He looked like he was choosing his words carefully. "Never figured you for a guy that fucked kids. I gotta say."

Tig gave him an affronted look. "She's almost twenty years old, man."

Happy gave him a look. "Clay told me how long you had her in that apartment. How old was she when that all started?"

Tig looked confused, then waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, that. Jesus, no, I wasn't hittin' that until maybe a year and a half ago."

Happy looked like he was considering this. "Yeah, I don't get that," he finally said, and laughed a bit. "I guess in that case I have to ask, why not?"

Tig realized he'd never actually tried to work it out before, out loud. "Well," he said. "you have to understand, she didn't look like much at first. Didn't have any plan to keep her around. Besides, she was scared of me." He chuckled a bit, remembering.

Happy had another drink. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Terrified. She stayed, though. I had no idea why." He sensed that Happy was just staying quiet, listening. "So at first, it wasn't on my mind, and God knows _what _was on hers, but _that _wasn't it." He drained the rest of his beer in a single drink. "Then, out of nowhere, she came onto me one night."

Happy started to laugh. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"When was that?"

Tig thought about it. "Maybe two, two-and-a-half years back?"

Happy was quiet again for a moment. "And you didn't."

"Right. I did not. Didn't want to mess up a good thing. Kid took care of everything in the place, was nice, was... happy to _see _me, you know? I didn't want her to start getting' all..." he made a confused face. "You know. How they get." He waited for Happy's nod. "But after that," he said, "I gotta admit it was in my head whenever I went over there."

"So why'd you wait so long?"

Tig reached for his second beer, stopped and thought. "I liked watching her want it," he said finally. "Plenty of Crow Eaters around, if I wanted to fuck something. That one..." he opened his beer and took a drink. "I just like watching the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn't watching. Desperate, like she'd do anything, you know?"

Happy reflected. He _did_ know, in a way. Not in Tig's way—he didn't think he'd want something so stark, so wildly off-balance in terms of power. He remembered the way Aisha had looked him in the eye when he had the gun to her head, and they way her eyes had dropped, instinctively, when Tig came into the room, even though he could tell how badly she'd wanted to see the man. _He taught her that, _Happy thought. _Probably trained in into her to the point where it's reflex now. _He waited a minute. "Yeah, so finish the story," he said.

"What the fuck do you mean_ finish the story_? I fucked her, didn't change how bad she wanted it, probably made it worse in fact." He paused for a moment, thinking of the things he wasn't going to mention... the way it looked when he could glance down and see her kneeling, feel her pressing her lips to his boot. The way he'd stopped letting her eat with him, but watched her down there, throwing her something when he was done. He shook his head. "The rest you know. Some shit got stirred up and I brought her here, Clay told you to go up there and put a bullet in her head when my fuckin' back was turned, right?"

Happy looked only mildly surprised. "That's pretty much how it was."

"So why'd he change his mind?"

"Sorry." Happy shook his head. "Can't tell you that, brother. It's Clay, you know? He does what feels right at the time."

"So what else do you want to know? About the fingers?"

"I told you, you don't have to tell me. The fingers I get."

Tig looked interested. He wasn't sure _he_ understood, completely, why he did the things he did. "Why the fingers, then?"

Happy shrugged, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Because you could."

Tig had started laughing as he picked up his cellphone. Happy watched it disappear, Tig's face turn hard and focused. "Shit, I could've_ told_ you that meet was no fuckin' _good_, Clay," he said urgently. His tone told Happy two things—that nothing important had changed between Clay and his sergeant-at-arms, nothing that was going to do any lasting damage... and that something seriously bad had just gone down.

Tig snapped his phone shut and stood up. "Come on, we could use you," he said. "Darby used the meet to have some Russians roll in, almost shot Clay, grabbed V."

Happy jumped up and grabbed his keys. He couldn't explain what the words had done to him exactly, but since tattooing V, all he could see was her scar. He'd wanted to tell her how fucking beautiful he thought it was, but figured that was shit she didn't want to hear. "Clay know where they took her?" he asked.

"No," said Tig as they rushed to the bikes, "he's got no idea where the Russians are holed up. Figures Darby or one of the others do, though." He turned to Happy and smiled. "Think _we_ get to go find out."


	22. Chapter 22

Happy and Tig met back up at the main gate of Teller-Morrow at eight o'clock. As Tig dismounted his bike, Happy could see the same tension in Tig that he felt in his own shoulders and jaw.

"How the fuck is it possible," Tig asked in a tone of tightly-held fury "that there's not a fuckin' Russian or a Nord in Charming or a ten mile radius?"

Happy lit a cigarette. In terms of finding anyone connected to V's kidnapping, the place was a ghost town. They'd hit every spot, every safe house they knew about. They'd paid a visit to Darby's refinishing shop—a visit whose destructive nature served to release some tension, but which was ultimately as a much a waste of time as anything. Anyone who might have intel seemed to have vanished into thin fucking air, every crank spot in Lodi was dead, every Nord-affiliated _bartender _had called in sick to work. It was organized, it was quiet, and there was money behind it.

Even Tig, not normally a strategist, had stopped halfway through the evening and said ,"this isn't just about V. Too much planning behind it." He'd gone to call Clay, and let him know.

Meeting back up with him, Happy had to agree. Everything was locked down too tight, and the sense of something big was too palpable. "V.'s going to be the beginning," he said, "not the end. It's going to start when we find her body."

"Fuck," said Tig, his face showing the strain of the last few days, and something else. "You know what that's going to look like. That's going to be ugly."

Happy nodded, threw away his cigarette, and immediately lit another. "And it's going to be before morning," he said, snapping his lighter shut. "And in Charming." He looked at Tig. "We need to let Clay know this is bigger than V-" he started to say, when they were suddenly surrounded by two police cars with sirens and lights flashing, and the unmistakeable dark sedan that opened to reveal a tightly-smiling Agent Stahl.

"Sorry to do this after hours," she said dryly, "but Mr. Trager needs to come with us."

-0-

Gemma couldn't have put it into words, but it meant something, right now, to have someone else helping her take care of things. With the club in crisis lock-down mode, Aisha had suddenly gone from shyly drifting around the periphery to silently and efficiently assisting with everything from emptying ashtrays to loading guns. Waking up to find that V had been taken, and then Tig's call informing Clay that it seemed to be part of an organized move on the part of the Russians to do more than get revenge, the girl had showered, without a trace of shyness asked Chibs to bandage her back, dressed, and moved into action one step behind Gemma, getting her what she needed almost before she thought of it.

Maybe more than anything else, it was the lack of panic and the lack of questions that Gemma appreciated. She thought of the times when things had been bad in the past few years and Tig had disappeared for the night, come back with a wound dressed or a different gun. He hadn't bothered to shield the girl from anything, Gemma guessed, and in some strange way Aisha had to be used to it.

The lack of any real, defined action to take had ramped up the tension among the guys to almost unbearable levels. Jax and Clay stood together, desperately trying to lay out the steps of a plan. Chibs paced back and forth, a loose cannon waiting to go off, and Gemma noticed Aisha subtly asking him for help every time he seemed ready to explode—a bandage, ammo, something that seemed to remind him that he was keeping it together and preparing for action, and made it possible for him to play the waiting game.

When Happy walked into the room alone, Aisha's stomach dropped to the floor. Taking a deep breath, then another, she finished measuring the coffee, poured the water into the machine, and flicked the switch. Only then did she turn around, and even then, only her eyes were questioning. Happy's quick glance told her all she needed to know, and his words to Clay confirmed it.

"We didn't find shit," he said, and she reflected that his voice, unsettling as it always was, was colder than she'd ever heard it before—including when he'd had his gun to her head. "And Stahl just picked up Tig."

The crash of his coffee mug into the glass wall behind the bar was Clay's immediate answer. "Shit!" he yelled. "Now? Fuckin' now, she picked him up?"

Jax shook his head. He seemed as tense as Clay, his hand shaking as he dragged deeply on his cigarette. "This isn't a coincidence," he said bleakly. "That piece of shit in Stockton's tied in with Darby. If there's something going down, this is a way to take Tig out of the picture while it happens."

Jax was surprised when Aisha was the first one to speak in reply. She nodded at him, like she wasn't surprised. "Arrested?" she said to Happy.

He shook his head. "He's 'answering some questions.'" he said with frustration evident in his voice.

Aisha met Clay's eyes. "Not time to worry yet," she said, calmly starting to pick up the larger pieces of glass from behind the bar and putting them into the mug which had, miraculously, survived the impact. Clay nodded at her and stalked out of the room, muttering something about calling Unsler and barking orders at Opie who he seemed to be pulling into Tig's spot for the moment.

A glance passed between Jax and Gemma. _What the hell was that? t_hey each thought. There seemed to be some shorthand passing between Happy, Aisha and Clay, which of all the events of the night seemed hardly the least unlikely. _When there's time, _Gemma thought, _one of them is going to tell me what the fuck that is that I just saw._

-0-

Tig could feel every second that passed as he waited in the room. Stahl took her time coming back, and when she sat down she was quiet for a while, her version of the sympathetic and helpful half-smile plastered across her face, that "I'm just here to _help _you" look. Of all the cunt's expressions, that was the one that most begged for him to knock it off her face, and he was able to calm himself down only be remembering what Otto had done to her.

"Someone wants you out of the way, Mr. Trager," Stahl said in a friendly tone.

"No shit," said Tig. "And here you are, doin' their job for 'em."

Somehow, that actually seemed to have hit a nerve. Tig had a sense that however badly she wanted to take down the club as a whole and him personally, the idea of ATF as a pawn in a larger game rankled with her. "Is that what you think?" she asked him.

Tig slammed him fist on the table in frustration. "It doesn't matter what I think," he said. "Ask your fuckin' questions and let me out of here."

Stahl opened her ubiquitous manila file folder. Tig waited for her to pull out whatever it would be this time. He wondered for a second if she could have gotten anything from the Tahoe trip. Would there be pictures? Of him, of Hap, of him and Aisha together? Some kind of documentation? That would be the last thing he fucking needed right now.

Stahl snapped her folder shut and looked back at him. "I don't have any questions," she said.

Tig looked at her, confusion and fury stamped across his features. "Then why'd you pull me in?" he snarled.

Stahl stood up, both palms flat on the table, and leaned towards him. "I brought you in to tell you that at nine A.M. tomorrow, police acting on a statement made by an inmate at Stockton correctional facility are going to arrest you for two counts of murder for beating Amber Lang to death and shooting her pimp, and a whole host of charges involving her daughter Aisha Lang, ranging from simple battery to felony kidnapping. Too many to list here really, but added up they make a pretty impressive amount of time inside. Makes the double murder almost the icing on the cake, really."

It wasn't that he hadn't been expecting this, but it was still an ugly shock to hear it out loud. He looked up at Stahl. "And why the fuck do you have me in here to give me the warning?" he asked.

She turned away from the table and seemed restless, like she wanted to start pacing back and forth but wouldn't do it in front of him. "_Because," _she said in a voice almost as furious as his own, "the supposed witness is a degenerate meth dealer affiliated with prison-based white supremacist groups here in Charming." She looked up at him. "And he seems to have some direct connection to your friend Darby, who recently came into some money quite mysteriously. And because it seems like this entire trip down memory lane is being orchestrated by _another_ criminal faction who want to weaken your club, and keep _me_ distracted from whatever it is they're doing, by giving _me_ an opportunity to squeeze the Sons of Anarchy for info on gunrunning, by threatening to put _you _away forever."

He looked at her, not following, entirely. "And you're not gonna do that?"

"Oh, I'll _do_ it, Mr. Trager. I'll have you in prison forever on these charges, unless you tell me what I want to know. But that's a conversation we'll be having tomorrow." She smiled. "I'm not going to be used to help smooth someone else's transition into taking over illegal gun-running from the IRA-supplied faction in Northern California, Mr. Trager. Someone's enjoying themselves a little too much with this, and I don't intend to do their dirty work for them."

"You're letting me go."

"Sure," she nodded. "I could do that, certainly. I could cut you loose right now and bring you in tomorrow morning. And rest assured, Charming's locked up tight, Mr. Trager. You're not getting out between now and then." She'd softened her voice to the lilting tone she often used when she wanted to let them know she held all the cards. "Or I could keep you here, and let whatever was going to happen to Clay happen, with you sitting in a jail cell, waiting for your ugly little murder and your statutory rape charges to be filed." She smiled. "It's up to you. One piece of info. Tomorrow, we have this conversation in County, and I hit you for everything. Tonight, I just want to know _who_. Who's doing it, Mr. Trager? Who kidnapped Victoria Kramer? Who's suddenly dropping all the info on Aisha Lang into our laps? Who's out to get Sam Crow?"

Tig's mind was trying furiously to add the new info to what he already knew, to figure out where the hell he stood. The charges—well, the charges on Aisha weren't going to stick, but with the murders, that didn't much matter. She'd be at him tomorrow for everything, anything she could get to open a RICO case with, and he wasn't going to be able to get around her without a chance to talk to Clay. He'd be in for 50 fucking years, might even get a bleeding-heart DA who saw a story in it about a poor single mother beaten to death and her daughter abducted, and look for the death penalty.

On the other hand, what the fuck did she really have? Some cellmate story from some AB lowlife looking for immunity, who'd known the pimp back in the day? Some "I heard the guy got found himself pulling his hooker scam shit on the wrong motherfucker from Sam Crow" gossip? Story'd probably been going around Stockton for years. If they'd had anything, they'd have moved on it. Now, with the pictures of him and Aisha, they thought they had a link. When they found that trail cold, would they have to let him go?

_The fucking gun, _he realized with a cold, sinking feeling. _That idiot and that fat fuck left that fucking gun there. "Couldn't find it"-what kind of shit is that? _He remembered it like it was happening in front of him. He'd dropped the gun right there, then turned around to see the kid staring at him, fear and gratitude fighting each other in her eyes.

"Well, Mr. Trager?"

_The gun. Shit. _He drew a breath. "All I know's Russians," he said softly. "Same ones gutted V. Thought it was about her."

Stahl looked at him in wonder. Did Trager have any idea what he was telling her? If there were Russians moving in on Charming, it meant they'd decided to cut out the IRA middleman. It was a direct international pipeline through California, it was a way in to a group that she'd heard about, but that had seemed unbreakable. She could have Homeland Security on this, she could-

"Now I walk out of here," Tig said, his voice even.

She nodded, seeming distracted as she walked to the door. "Of course, Mr. Trager. We'll see each other tomorrow."


	23. Chapter 23

_I realize there are some questions here, and some things left unanswered; rest assured they'll all be tied up by the end. A couple chapters here before "End of the Beginning" picks up again._

_As always, feedback spurs me on._

Chapter 13:

He almost didn't see her in the shadows next to the clubhouse door. When he did notice something, he almost blew her fucking head off. Wouldn't be the first time; he'd warned her she was too quiet.

He pulled her a little further back from the door and pushed her up against the building, feeling her flinch as the bandage on her back made contact with the wall. "Happy to see me?" he muttered, as his teeth found her lower lip. He knew there was no excuse for not going inside immediately, telling Clay what had happened, but another part of him knew that this was basically going to be it. Once he went in there, he'd be locked up with Clay for the rest of the night, and in the morning he'd be locked up for—he didn't want to think about it. He was here, tonight, and he could take action for Clay. Right now, he was taking a moment that was just fucking _his_.

He let go of her lip and looked her over, shaking his head. Still too fucking thin for his tastes. "What the fuck are you doing out here?" he asked, in a tone neither of them would have recognized as that of an overbearing father—it wasn't a voice he'd ever been around to use on his kids, or one that Aisha had ever had an opportunity to hear from anyone. "Gemma doesn't need you anyplace?"

She looked at him. "We got the call that Stahl let you go," she said simply.

He knew what she meant... it was the same reason he was out here and not inside. There wouldn't have been a moment to spare on her when he walked in, any time she was going to get, she was going to have to steal. He held her up against the wall at arm's length, and ran his fingers over the scar on her face and then pulled her forward to touch the bandages on her shoulder. Happy had been right about why he'd broken her fingers, he reflected. It had been one of those things that crossed his mind briefly when he was with someone else—the pouty Crow Eater who looked like her from the other night, actually, who'd reached for his cock a little too eagerly—and he'd waited to do it until he was in the place where he _could. _The scars were different, though, the one on her face and this new one he'd given her. The scars said something about what she was to him, in a way that the rest of it never could.

She looked up at him. "Did you miss me?" she asked.

He pressed his fingers onto the bandage on her back, and smiled at her. "No."

-0-

Clay came up quietly behind Happy. "Where the fuck is that kid?" he asked. "Did she cut out? Doing it on her own, maybe?"

Happy shook his head. "She'd need to make a stop first," he said. "No. She's out there, waiting for him. Let her have that."

Clay nodded. "Wonder if he's got any idea what he's got for himself," he said. "Loyal bitch like that's something worth holding onto."

Happy smiled. "You should know, right?"

-0-

His hand was over her mouth. "Careful," he whispered. "You don't want to move too much. Knife like this probably can't cut you this way but I wouldn't be too sure."

The times he kissed her were relatively rare, and he usually surprised himself when he did it. This time, it had been slow, hard and deliberate. He didn't love this girl—the idea that he could love Aisha struck him as a strange juxtaposition of an emotion with something it couldn't possibly be associated with in any real way—but he was going to go away for a long time, and in a way it was for her. When he'd seen that sort of thing before, when it happened with other people, usually it had to do with love. _What the hell, _he thought. _Just once, kiss her like you mean it._

As usual, all he could feel was her yielding, giving in so fast that it was like endlessly falling through darkness with no possibility of ever hitting bottom. It was good. Really fucking good.

Kicking her legs out from under her was even better.

Later, he'd always remember that she hadn't screamed when it was her left hand that instinctively shot out to break her fall and she came down hard on the broken fingers. It happened in silence, a gasp and a wild flare of pain in her eyes the only sign. _She knows if she makes any noise, they'll know we're out here, _he thought. _And then it'll be over. _In the constantly shifting sets of cost-benefit analyses that made up Aisha's inner life as he knew it, she'd decided instantly that the pain, the possible permanent damage, was worth getting another minute out here with him. That was when he took the knife out, and before she'd fully gotten her bearings lying on the concrete, it was inside her.

This was something he _had_ done before, with a couple of particularly kinky bitches—if you knew what you were doing it looked a lot more dangerous than it was—but he could tell she had no idea what was going to happen. "Shhhh..." he said, letting go of her mouth and starting to stroke her hair. "You just stay nice and still."

-0-

"I said I was giving him five minutes," Clay growled, stomping over to where Bobby stood at the window. "Five fucking minutes. I get that he should get a chance to say goodbye to her, but we're on a time clock here."

Bobby shushed him, waving an arm in his direction. "I hear you loud and clear, boss, but I really don't want to startle him while he's got a knife in her snatch, OK?"

The whole room reacted with exclamations of varying degrees, from Clay's "fuck, never mind," to Chibs' "didn't need to know that, mate," and the Prospect's "dude, TMI!" All except for Happy, who just stood there laughing. Jax put his head in his hands. "Jesus, don't tell me that, Bobby," he said. "Fuck, I need _that_ image in my head now?"

"Young love," said Gemma ironically, with an exasperated expression on her face.

"Tig's almost as old as I am," snapped Clay, "and I need his ass in here, now."

Everyone looked at each other, silently. A few glances turned to Happy. "Oh, fuck _that_," he said. "Not _me_."

"Prospect!" Clay snapped. "Get Tig in here. Now."

Half-Sack looked terrified. He usually never argued, but this was something else. "What, _me_? Why the fuck can't someone else do it? Someone he _won't_ kill?"

Clay shrugged, and smiled at the propect with his cigar between his teeth. "Can't afford to lose any of _them_," he said, grinning. "Looks like we might have a war on pretty soon."

-0-

He'd removed the knife slowly, set it next her head, where she could see it while he fucked her, and was undoing his belt, when the shaky and overly-loud voice of the Prospect came from the door. "Sure, boss!" Half-Sack yelled, way too loudly if there was someone in the room with him. "I'll just go check on the bikes! Just give me a second to work this door right, OK?"

Tig cursed, and sat up, quickly buckling his belt and sheathing the knife. He reached down and gave Aisha a decently hard smack across the face, then looked down at her and smiled. "We'll finish this later," he said to her, throwing as much conviction as possible into his voice, but still coming out sounding forced and hollow."

"Of course," she said, in a tone that matched his. "Whenever you want."

He reached down and helped her up, unable to stop the thoughts that crowded into his mind. What the fuck was going to happen to her, anyway? Would Clay keep her around? Sure, probably. And what would _that_ look like, maybe not immediately, but certainly within a year? There was enough curiosity about her among the guys that despite whatever they'd tell themselves in the beginning, every single one would have to have a taste eventually. He thought of V, the night she'd come into the clubhouse dressed like a sweetbutt, saying she owed the club. Aisha would owe the club when he went away on her account, would owe the club big, and Tig knew Clay well enough to know that he'd know how to use that, maybe doling her out to the guys as needed, as a reward or a special favor.

_Is it going to be all of them, or will she find someone to protect her? _He wondered. _She's pretty enough—fuck, she's well-trained enough, if you think of it that way—that it's not impossible she'll end up someone's exclusively. _Who would it be? Jax, who would tell himself he was doing it to protect her as he revelled in being with someone who didn't make demands? Chibs, after V had finally had her fun and moved on, looking for something to take it out on? Fucking _Clay, _Clay with his knowing looks and appraising stare, who'd tried to have her killed but would turn around and treat her like a daughter if he felt like it, draw her in, maybe hide her someplace she wouldn't annoy Gemma...

More than the sick feeling he got making himself think of it, there was also a dead certainty that this was going to be the worst possible thing for the club. V. had been bad enough. Jax and Clay would be at each other's throats over this, within six months. If it was Chibs, he wouldn't be able to hold her against the other two. Tig took a firm hold of Aisha's upper arm and felt the knife in its place at his side as they walked back into the clubhouse. He had to do _something._

-0-

Happy stood slightly outside the group with his back to the wall, noticing how the moment Tig stepped back into the clubhouse, the levity was gone. It was as though his five minutes outside with Aisha had been a break in the tension, a moment for everyone to relax before someone started screaming, and now it was over—everyone was thinking about V, and about what could be coming after.

"I got some bad news chief," Tig said to Clay as he came in. "Looks like some scumbag up in Stockton said something to tie me to the Humboldt thing, and Stahl wants it bad, so that she can try to get me to roll over on you, on the Irish, on everything. Naturally I'm not saying shit, so we're basically looking at forever."

Clay nodded, like he'd been expecting as much.

Jax broke in. "She know anything that might help us find V?"

Tig shook his head. "Knew what she had from Unser, less than what we knew."

"At least she's on it, though," Bobby offered. "I know we hate the idea of feds nosing around, but they might have inroads we don't, in terms of knowing where the Russians are."

"We can find the Russians first," said Happy in a low but almost hungry tone. Tig looked over at him, dropped Aisha's shoulder and cocked his head to indicate she should go over to the kitchen with Gemma.

"Hap," he said. "Gotta talk to you about something, it'll take two seconds. Then we'll figure out what's next, right?"

Clay nodded at him. "Don't take too long," he said. "Nothing's going right, tonight."

Happy followed Tig into the hall with a sinking feeling about what the man was going to say. Guys looking at that much time inside tended to start putting their affairs in order, and if he'd bothered to think about it, Happy probably could have drawn out Aisha's probably future with much the same brushstrokes that Tig had. _In it's own way, _thought Happy, _this is kind of touching._

Standing in the hall, Tig leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, suddenly tired. "Hap," he said, "I know this is probably the last thing you want to think about and all, and trust me, it's something I don't like thinking about either..."

_Oh, God, of course this would have to come down on me, _Happy thought. _Couldn't it be anyone the fuck else? _"There's Jax, man," he said, knowing as he spoke that it was hopeless. Tig wouldn't leave his his beat-up porno mag collection to Jax if he was going inside. He and Jax had too much bad blood. Aisha was something Tig had put time and work into, something he wanted to make decisions for. _Of course Tig's going to have to pass her on, he doesn't want Clay doing it,_ Happy thought suddenly. _He knows that if he says something now, particularly to me, that the other guys will respect it._ There was a way this went, when a guy was going down for serious time. He could say he wanted a few things to be a certain way, and it was like the club had voted on it—it would didn't matter that Happy knew the chances of Tig going to prison were slim to none—he knew that what was going to matter here was that _Tig _believed it, and he couldn't tell the man any different, he and Clay had agree on that. Technically, this was something that wasn't going to mean anything, they were just wasting time here.

Still, Happy couldn't shake how wrong this felt. In a situation like this, he'd imagine that under the shitty nature of the whole thing, there'd be some kind of excitement, some kind of desire. In this case, all he was getting was bad vibes, and part of him wanted to put a quick bullet into Tig, despite everything they'd been through, before the man could say the actual words.

Tig fixed Happy with a cold stare. "I'm going inside," he said, putting it out there as a simple statement of fact. "Aisha's yours."


	24. Chapter 24

_Why the fuck did he have to do this now? _Happy thought, angry at Tig, at Aisha, at Clay, at the whole situation. Yeah, fine, it was important that everyone thought that Tig was going down for the murders, important that Tig thought so too, but the man was taking it too goddamn seriously, and Happy could see it was taking Tig's brain in directions it probably didn't need to be going. "We done here?" he asked, knowing that Tig didn't want a response to what he'd just said beyond the brief nod Happy had given him. _What the fuck do you say, anyway? _He thought _Oh, thanks for the parting gift, I'll be thinking of you?_

"Just make sure Clay knows that," said Tig softly, twisting one of the rings on his big hands as he watched Clay across the room.

"I will, man. No worries there."

Tig nodded. "Okay," he said, "let's find V."

-0-

Finding V. Jax couldn't think about anything else, as he searched him mind for anything he could remember about these guys from when King Leo came after her, anything that might spark a memory that would help. Chibs was jumping out of his skin; Juice looked sick; Opie looked like he felt responsible ("I was standing right next to her," he kept saying); even Tig looked like he was taking it seriously, although whether that was because of V or his impending arrest, Jax didn't know. Not for the first time, Jax found himself grateful for Clay's presence, although hating himself slightly for it. Clay seemed in control, ready to take action, and almost too sure of himself. He seemed worried about V, but as for the rest of it-

Jax found himself pulled out of his thoughts by whatever the hell was going on with Tig. He'd come into the room, where Clay seemed to be waiting before pulling everyone together for Chapel (_and what the fuck was he stalling for, anyway?_ Jax wondered) and given Clay a long, hard look before snapping his fingers for Aisha to come over to him. He gestured her over to where Happy was standing, looking like he was in front of a firing squad. Aisha looked back at him, confused.

"See if he needs anything," Tig said. The rest of the club members started to pay attention. Tig had been downright hostile about the idea of Aisha's so much as speaking with another club member since she'd been here, what the hell was going on?

"Oh, Jesus Christ," said Gemma, an expression both weary and somehow angry scrawled across her features. "This isn't the moment, Tigger."

Aisha looked, if possible, even more confused. Clay looked like something was starting to dawn on him, and it was making him angry. Tig was giving Clay a low, level stare. "She's with _him_ when I'm gone," he said, in a voice that dared Clay to challenge him.

Clay felt like Tig had just walked up and slapped him. After all everyone was doing to keep the bastard out of jail—Clay couldn't get over the fact that Tig had spoken, not to the club at large, not to Jax who'd already tried rubbing up on her, but to _him. "_You're telling _me _this?" he said, his voice starting to rise. "You think I need to be kept off her when you go to prison? That's fucking funny, Tig-"

"OK, this isn't something that needs to happen right now," Bobby broke in. "Everyone's upset, everyone's worried, Clay you know how it is looking down the barrel of a long bit, you remember how Otto got-"

"You think this girl's not safe with me? Not safe with this club?" Clay was yelling in Tig's face now, each phrase punctuated by his stabbing his finger in the air near Tig's face. Tig just stood there as Clay's voice rose, but Jax could see him starting to get angry. What was Clay angrier about, Jax wondered, the fact that Tig was telling the entire club he didn't trust Clay, or the fact that in his mind the girl _had _been SAMCRO property, and he was already figuring out what he would do with her?

It was another moment where the tension in the room, the pent-up frustration of having no idea how to help V, the image of her that had been in everyone's mind all night, seemed like it could explode at any moment. Tig's impending arrest had only made the impending storm more palpable. Now, this thing with Aisha and Happy looked like it was going to be the catalyst to set everything off. Even he was so tense that almost shot somebody when the whistle on the tea kettle went off.

"Let's all _calm down_," said Gemma, in anything but a placating tone of voice, as she stalked into the kitchen. "Aisha, get in here, they can fight over you later."

Jax found himself watching Aisha. Later, he'd be glad he did, because it would have been impossible for him to piece together exactly what happened next if his eyes hadn't been right on her.

At Gemma's voice, Aisha had ripped her eyes away from Tig—she'd been staring at him with an expression so betrayed that Jax could barely stand to look at it—and turned toward the kitchen. At that moment, Happy stepped forward as if to calm Tig down, and Clay moved out of Happy's way—passing in front of Aisha. Jax was dead certain he was the only person who had just seen Clay slip something into Aisha's hand. If the incident with his gun hadn't taught him how goddamned fast she could be, even with his eyes on her he'd have missed what happened next.

Everyone started to talk at once, Tig announcing that he had a right to make this decision, Clay fuming back that it was a slap in the goddamn face, Chibs snapping that they all had it now, so could someone please pay attention to the problem of the woman who was about to be _dead_ if they didn't figure something out soon, Juice adding an extra layer of noise begging everyone to just calm down, Opie saying the important thing was V and that he couldn't believe he'd been standing right next to her, and Aisha softly saying, in Tig's direction, that everything was fine and things might be calmer with some chamomile tea, her hand, the hand Clay had pressed, moving over the mug, Bobby's explosive of laughter and "Tigger drinks chamomile-" cut short by a solid punch in the arm from Clay. Jax felt like the room had gotten too hot all of a sudden—what the hell was going on?

Tig had seen Aisha's face when he said what he did, and part of him wanted to pull her aside and explain things the way he'd worked them out. It may not have been her place to ask him for fucking explanations, but Christ, she looked like he'd killed her. Then Clay got in his face and started yelling again, and Happy was trying to smooth it over but he wasn't exactly the person Tig most wanted to see right now, actually, and goddamned Juice wouldn't shut the fuck up, everything had gotten louder and suddenly Aisha was back and she handed him a cup of that tea she liked to make, and smiled at him, and it seemed bit quieter. The way it always did. He took a drink, thinking _Fuck Bobby anyway, what the fuck is wrong with me drinking tea, she's probably right and it would do everyone some good to calm the fuck down, besides they probably won't be handing you a lot of cups of chamomile tea in fuckin' prison, that was for sure, and_

Jax watched as Tig hit the ground, the mug striking the floor a second after he did, and suddenly everyone was quiet, looking at Tig, unconscious in the middle of the room.

Neither Clay, Happy, or Aisha, Jax noticed, seemed even a little bit surprised. Clay nodded at Happy, who cut his eyes quickly at Aisha, and while everyone was still looking at Tig, Happy had grabbed her by the arm and the two of them disappeared out the side door before Gemma, the first one to collect herself, asked the room at large what the fuck had just happened.

-0-

Aisha hadn't counted on it being this unsettling to be on the back of someone else's bike, but then, she hadn't counted on Tig's pronouncement back at the clubhouse, either, which had made Happy not exactly the most easy person for her to be around, right now. Meanwhile, between her wariness and her broken hand, he finally had to pull the bike over, after he'd almost lost her around a tight corner for the second time.

"Look," he said, "you don't hang on, this doesn't get done."

She nodded, eyes closed. "That was just a little much for me to deal with, back there. I'm sorry. I'm fine." She opened her eyes and tried to smile at him.

_Shit, _he thought. This was reminding him uncomfortably of his attempt to carry out the hit on her, in the way she was acting about the whole thing. He thought about it, then got off the bike, and lit a cigarette, helping her off. "Let's talk," he said.

She looked wary, then frightened. _I wonder if I could just make this into an "I'm not into you in that way" conversation, _he thought. He almost had to laugh—if something like this had been happening in a movie, there would be sexual tension all over the place. Now, all he could feel was how much neither of them wanted to be there.

"First off," Happy said, "he thought he was going to prison. He was worried about you. It was his way of trying to be nice."

Aisha tried to nod, but he could see he wasn't getting through. Well, of course he wasn't. She'd spent her entire adult life with Tig as her whole world, only to hear him offhandedly give her to the man who'd almost killed her. Happy sighed.

"OK, look. Second thing, if it _had _meant anything, if he had been going to prison, it wouldn't have meant what he sounded like it meant anyway, OK? It was, like... a way to make sure the rest of them would stay away from you. All it would mean is I'd check up on you sometimes, things like that."

She nodded with a little bit more certainty, looking up at him.

"Okay?" he asked. "Because we've got to go. Got to break into V's apartment, do your pickup, and get you to the cops before morning."

She looked at him steadily. "You promise me that's all it meant," she said. "Seriously."

He put his hands up. "I promise." Then, she looked so serious, he couldn't keep himself from adding "Jesus, it would be that bad?"

"Kinda, yeah," she said. "I mean... God, no offense. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" she looked around. "Look, I just... ok, I've never even _been _with anyone else, you know?"

_Of course she hadn't, _he thought, surprised but somehow not shocked. _Jesus Christ, of course she hadn't. _He thought for a second. "Honestly, with everything going on, I think it's best we just act like that whole scene in there never happened. People say a lot of things when they're... under stress. Never happened, OK?"

She nodded, but still looked worried. "You think he'll go with that too, that it never happened?"

Happy nodded. "I think so," he said. _He's going to be so goddamned pissed off when he wakes up, _thought Happy, _at you, at me, at Clay... I'm pretty sure this is going to be the last thing on his mind._

The rest of the trip went easier, and they were outside V's apartment building in a couple of minutes. He noticed her looking wistfully at the windows of the apartment on the ground floor. He hung back a second before going in. Something felt wrong. "You sure we aren't in any danger of being seen?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I'm pretty sure the feds stopped watching it when they figured I was either at the clubhouse or dead," she said. "And it's... well, look at it. That's part of the reason he liked it. Way out here with nothing else on the block. There's four apartments but only two of them occupied. I mean, I guess only one, now." She looked around. "There's something, though. I don't like this." She turned a childlike, questioning look on him. "Do you like it? Something seem off?"

He looked up. "The second floor, then, that's her?"

"Yeah. She's right above where were lived."

Happy could put his finger on it immediately. "Why the fuck are her lights on?"

Aisha looked up, and went quiet. Wordlessly, he took out his gun, and stepped into the shadows. She followed. He had the time to think that she was pretty good with that... hell, _he _wasn't even sure she was there. Then he tried to entryway door. Open.

On the first floor, he stopped and looked up. It was less a sound than a sense that there had been a noise, but he and Aisha were both frozen. He reached past her... the door to her and Tig's old apartment hadn't been locked when they left, and he was able to push it open easily. He gestured her inside with the gun, and was about to follow when there was another noise. There was absolutely no mistaking it this time.

V. was up there. The bastards had brought her back to the last place any of the guys would think to look for her—her own apartment.


	25. Chapter 25

**_Longer chapter than usual, but needed to get it all in there. There are going to be a few things revealed in the next couple of chapters, so feel free to message or review if there's something that doesn't make sense-within the next update or two, everything should be clear._**

**_There've been a couple of reviews that have speculated on whether Aisha's the victim in her situation with Tig, and I really don't actually think she is. She wouldn't think so, anyway, and I don't think her childhood traumas entirely explain her coldness, and that she and Tig are a lot more alike than they'd appear at first glance. She's more of a long-range planner, though, definitely._**

**_I think we've only got another chapter or two to go with this, so hope everybody's still along for the ride._**

Chapter 25

Gemma speculated that when she'd bought that set of stoneware mugs, she'd certainly gotten her money's worth. Wordlessly, she picked up the unbroken mug where it had fallen out of Tig's hand, set it next to the one Clay had thrown earlier, and came back to wipe up the spilled tea next to Tig's immobile body, her eyes meeting Clay's with a look of warning mixed with sardonic curiosity.

Jax was completely baffled. V was still missing, Tig had passed out, Happy had grabbed Aisha and taken off, nobody seemed to know what was going on, but his mom was having one of her typical just-another-day-in-the-life-of-the-MC moments, and had started _cleaning_.

"I don't understand what just happened," Opie said. "Is he... dead?"

Juice spoke up in a hushed tone. "Nah," he said, sounding a little spooked. "I... I know what this is. That time with the guns, remember? It's that shit he gave the cops." Juice looked embarrassed and slightly furious at the memory.

Bobby snickered a bit, "I remember that. The stapler was Tig's idea."

The thought made him stop laughing, suddenly, and everyone looked down at Tig again. Jax was the one who broke the silence this time, directly addressing Clay. "What the fuck," he asked, "is going on?"

Clay broke out into a wide grin. "Tigger's not going to prison," he said. Everybody looked at him. Jax noted that Clay looked like was having way too great a time, given the shitty night everyone was having. "Apparently, there was a plan to keep him that whole mess away from him. Just needed to get the girl out of here."

"So wait-" Jax said, "_drugging_ him was part of the plan?"

Clay looked a little sheepish. "Nah, we were just going to get her out while we were all in church," he said. "Knocking him out was kinda spur-of-the-moment." He looked around defiantly. "I was tired of hearing his mouth," he said. "Way things were headed, I was about to shoot him myself."

Jax could feel Chibs looking at him from across the room with an _if you won't say it, I will _glare. He cleared his throat. "Look, I don't know _what_ to think about all this," he said, gesturing down at Tig. "But if we can't figure something out, V's dead."

"V's dead already," said Clay tonelessly. "Been thinkin' it for about an hour. They grabbed her, what, four o'clock? That's almost eight hours now. That's long enough for a slow kill, and they weren't planning on keeping her around."

**-0-**

Aisha saw Happy starting up the staircase, screwing a silencer onto the barrel of his gun. He looked down at her, and with her eyes she indicated the creaky fifth stair. He stepped over it, and then she backed into her previous home and shut the door.

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now, and as she looked around she could see that the feds—or whoever had been here—hadn't been in a particularly good mood. The destruction was nearly total, the matress sliced to ribbons, table broken and turned over, what personal things had been left behind ripped out of closets and drawers and in heaps on the floor. In the kitchen, they'd even poured everything out of the bags and containers, sugar and flour pouring off the countertops.

She couldn't hear anything coming from upstairs, didn't know whether to be worried or not. If he didn't come back down, she'd have to assume the Russians or whoever had killed him, killed V. And then she'd have to figure out some way to get up there, get the bag with the shirt and the gun, and get out, without being seen. If it came down to it, there was a fire escape on the side of the building... she noticed a bottle of Jack half-full had escaped the desrtuction, and got it open with her good hand. She had to conquer some serious fear to get herself to take a drink-couldn't get past thinking that the bottle was his, and she wasn't allowed to touch it unless he wanted her to bring him some-but she needed something, anything, so she could stop fucking _planning._

She sat down against the wall, knees up, and wished she had a gun. It had felt a lot better here when there were always so many damn guns around. She tilted her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, rubbing her face with her hand, realizing for the first time that it was one of _his_ gestures, that she'd seen it dozens of times when he'd come back from something that seemed, although she never asked, to have been particularly rough, and that somewhere along the way she'd picked it up. She did it all the time now; she'd probably spent the entire night in the hallway outside of his room at the clubhouse this way.

Somehow, that helped her pull it together a bit. Whatever happened, she could deal with it, just like _he_ always had.

She hadn't _wanted_ to drug him. When Clay had slipped the tiny plastic bag of powder into her hand, her mind had recoiled from the thought of doing anything that underhanded. At the same time, she'd been locked into a course of action, and sometimes, with something like that, she just kept going until things got _done_, particularly if someone pointed her in a direction. She couldn't explain it, but there was something about when things got fast like that, and there wasn't all that _thinking_, that was hard to struggle against. The plastic baggie in the hand, the tea in the cup, Tig on the floor, and taking off on the bike with Happy, almost faster than it took to think it. God, was she ever going to see him again?

Of course, she reminded herself. She wasn't going to the ends of the earth, just to prison.

She jumped up when Happy kicked the door open and came in with V in his arms, unsure whether the woman might be dead. Somehow, seeing V like this was one of the hardest parts of the night—V was so incredibly tough, such a fighter, that the idea of her lying there broken was intolerable to Aisha. When she was pretty sure the two of them weren't looking—they were talking in low voices about the hospital, and about what Aisha had to do—she drank as much of the rest of the bottle of Jack as she could.

Fuck it, _everybody_ went to prison. She didn't think she'd known one single grown-up who hadn't spent some time inside. Nothing to act like such a _kid_ about.

It was harder to realize she'd never, ever be coming back here. She wasn't letting herself think about what he'd said when they were in the clubhouse, was not going to dwell on it. How could he have done that? "Just a way to keep the rest of them away from you," Hap had called it. _Seriously? _Aisha asked herself. _He thought that was fucking necessary? _All the things she'd done in the past week, which seemed to have been spent more with a gun against her head than not, and she hadn't proven to him that he didn't need to worry about her loyalty, he passed her off to someone else? He fucking _gave her away_?

Her thoughts were interrupted by V asking her for something to wear. She had to look around, finally found a shirt of _his. _She wanted to keep it, to put it on instead of this stupid dress, but she guessed V needed it more. When Happy's eyes indicated it was time to go, she passed the bottle of Jack to V, who wished her luck, but by that point Aisha had put herself back into the place where she _did _things, and could hardly hear her.

**-0-**

She didn't have any trouble staying close to Happy on the bike this time. They'd decided she shouldn't do this in Charming—Stahl was too entrenched at the station, might be able to make evidence disappear—so they were taking a longer trip, into Lodi. She could tell she was kind of drunk, and knew too that she hadn't even started to feel the worst part of it yet, that she'd spend a lot of time thinking about what he'd said, how he'd looked at her like she wasn't even his anymore.. At least this whole police-jail thing would help take her mind off of_ that._

Happy pulled over about a block away, and helped her off the bike. _God, she's such a kid, _he thought. _She going to be OK in there? _ He lit a cigarette, and was surprised when she asked for one. "I seem to remember he didn't like you doing this," he said, handing her the pack. She nodded, lit it, and started another coughing fit. _Hell,_ he thought. _She's a million miles away._

He waited until she was done, then tapped her on the arm to get her attention. "I'm going to watch you go in, but you won't see me," he said. "Don't do anything stupid. You'll be fine. They pretty much just tell you what to do, you'll see."

She nodded, looking relieved, but still wasn't moving. He felt impatient, thinking of V back at the apartment. With her injuries, with what had probably happened to her, he didn't want her alone too long.

"Talk," he said to Aisha, the way he seemed to remember having done sometime before.

She looked up at him. "Could you just... could you tell him I'm sorry? Will you do that? That I'm really, really sorry?"

He nodded. "Sure."

She turned around, then, and walked away. He got on his bike and went around the block, and by the time he came around the front, he could just see her disappearing into the front doors of the Lodi Police Station.

**-0-**

Some of the guys had tried to sleep, but Jax and Chibs hadn't found it possible. Sometime after seven, Chibs had come over to him, wearing an expression he'd never seen on the man's face before. "Jacky-boy," he said, "I can't... I can't do this. The waiting. Don't think I'll find anything, but I have to go out and try."

Clay had overheard, and stepped in front of him. "Nobody goes anywhere," he said. "We don't know that this is the end; we got _no idea_ what's happening out there tonight. Until something changes, everyone stays here."

Jacky turned a furious glare on the older man. "I'd like to hear you say that if it was someone you gave a fuck about," he said, his voice rising to a furious level.

Gemma raised her head wearily, where she'd been standing in the same spot in the kitchen, smoking, for the past few hours. "No one leaves," she said tiredly. "I'm not losing any more of you."

The hours slipped by until full morning. On the couch, Jax smoked, trying to tell himself there was still some chance for V. Across the room, in the kitchen, Gemma smoked and drank coffee. Chibs paced, seeming to contain limitless nervous energy. Only Clay seemed able to sleep, passed out on one of couches, but he jumped up as soon as his cell rang in his pocket.

He listened for a few minutes, then nodded and hung up. "That was Unser," he said to Gemma. "She's in custody. Probably go to County in a couple of hours, I guess CCI or Valley after that."

Gemma visibly relaxed. Chibs looked confused. Jax turned to Clay, aghast, but didn't have time to say anything. Tig had rolled onto his side and was beginning to open his eyes. He sat up and looked around.

"Hey, shit," he said. "Where's the kid?" He looked around. "What time is it?"

Gemma looked at her watch. "Ten-twenty."

Tig shook his head, feeling like he'd woken up on the wrong side of a shitty dream. "Nah, that can't be true. I'm getting arrested at nine, Gemma." He gave her a sad and confused look, obviously still under the influence of whatever they'd slipped him.

Clay grinned at Tig, and gave the man a hand up, trying not to visibly wince at the unexpected pain of Tig's grip. "It's fine, man, it's all cleared up," he said.

"Yeah?" Tig said. "Oh, that's... wow, that's great, Clay. That's real great." He still sounded completely out of it, and his eyes didn't look entirely focused. "Where's Aisha?"

Hearing Tig wake up, the other guys started to get up quickly from wherever they'd passed out around the room, nearly desperate to have some of this shit explained. Bobby stumbled towards the kitchen and accepted a cup of coffee from Gemma as Tig continued to look around, but he didn't quite reach it before he turned around in shock, hearing Clay say "Aisha's in jail in Lodi. Couple hours ago, she walked into the police station and confessed to blowing away that pimp up at her mother's place with his own gun, after she walked in on him beating her mother to death."

Everything in the room seemed to stop. Tig shook his head. "No," he said, confused, "that isn't what happened..."

Clay snorted. "Someone would have a tough time proving that now. She had the gun, her prints all over it and nobody else's, some shirt had his blood all over it, some money from a roll he had, also bloody. Seems she got scared after shooting the guy, ran off, and was hiding from the cops ever since. Ended up here, got hooked up with us, found out ATF was trying to pin her murder on the guy that was hittin' her-" he gestured to Tig, "decided it was time to come clean."

Tig felt like he was going fucking crazy. He'd been drinking a fucking cup of tea, now the kid was in lockup? What the hell was Clay telling him? Anger started cutting through the haze in his head, and with it came the ability to think cleary. "Wait a fucking second," he said, in a voice that let the entire room know that he wasn't groggy anymore. "What the fuck are you trying to tell me?"

Clay smiled. "She's going down for the murder in Humboldt," he said. "Guess she had the gun stashed for a long time, just in case something ever came out about it. When Hap went up to Tahoe that time... you know, to go get you guys... she told him she had your back."

_Had his back_... Tig thought back to that night, her clinging onto the back of his bike all the way to Charming. He knew her pretty well, and could guess that she hadn't grabbed the gun for anything more than insurance, just in case he turned out to be no different than the guy he'd shot with it. She'd probably stashed it somewhere in the apartment, figuring it was a good thing to have tucked away, just in case.

Somewhere along the line, things had changed, and she must have put the gun together with her shirt from that night, that boyish blue thermal she was wearing, and some of the roll he'd left in the drawer. You know, just in case. Somewhere along the line... he really wished he knew when... she'd made one of her calculating little contingency plans, had decided that if he ever got tapped for this, she was going to take the fall. When had she put it together, he wondered. Had he been fucking her yet? He doubted it. He'd seen the worship in her eyes long before that, knew she'd have died for him years before he ever touched her like that.

"You let her fucking do that?" Jax was looking from Tig to Clay, furious. "You set a little girl up to do his time?"

Clay put his hands up. "Hey!" he said. "I had nothing to do with it! You know how she is about Tigger—you were on the other end of a gun behind it, as I recall."

Gemma spoke up suddenly. "She ain't gonna do _his_ time, anyway," she said.

Everyone looked at her.

"Aisha's crazy, but she ain't stupid," Gemma said. "Tig was going away for a bunch of kiddie-rape charges, anything Stahl could get to stick, and two ugly murders, one of 'em beatin' a woman to death. He was going away til the Second Coming, with all that on him." She took a long drag of her cigarette. "Aisha's got _one_ charge. Sure, she's smart, without that charge, there's nothing else anyone can get to stick to Tig. But _she's_ not takin' em' on. How much time you think they're gonna throw at a little girl like that, comes in and says she shot the man beat her mother to death in front of her, maybe she was terrified he was gonna do the same to her? Manslaughter? Maybe? In self-defense? With provocation? Committed when she was a _juvenile_?"

Bobby looked like he was counting on his fingers. "Eighteen months. No, wait a minute. She turned herself in? Shit, maybe a year. OK, well, criminal associates, though..." he looked up at the ceiling. "She got any priors?" he asked Tig.

"Fuck if I know," he said, his voice showing no interest whatsoever. "Seems to me I don't know the first thing about her."

Juice looked up. "Yeah, she does," he said. "Juvenile. Arson. Clay had me look her up. Supposed to be expunged, she didn't get in any more trouble, but you know that shit never really goes away."

"Arson?" Clay looked amused. "You must have forgotten to tell me that. Wha'd she burn down, some shack someplace? Kids do that."

Juice shook his head. "A Denny's."

Somehow, the image of Aisha burning down a Denny's was one that was too funny to resist, even in the face of everything that had just happened. Clay burst into laughter and clapped Tig on the back. "That's some girl you've got there," he said.

Tig turned on Clay, his eyes hard and his voice cold. "I don't have anything to do with that girl," he said in a tone of barely concealed fury, "and I don't want to ever fuckin' hear about her again."


	26. Chapter 26

**_This is, technically, the final chapter of "Hidden." There will be an epilogue, that I'll post probably when "End of the Beginning" finishes up, but for all intents and purposes, this is how this movie ends, kids. _**

**_Of course, I think we might be seeing Aisha again._**

Chapter 26

Agent Stahl sat across from the girl she'd spent the past few weeks looking for. The girl was prettier than the pictures had shown, and looked younger, with wild dark curls around her face and dark skin that made it impossible for Stahl to pin down her ethnicity. The mother had been blonde, she remembered, so the father had to have been... something else. She had no idea what; there was no name listed on the kid's birth certificate. Against that skin, the initial carved into the side of her face was starkly pale and impossible to overlook. Stahl found herself wondering idly where the girl was going to fit in in prison.

She'd been eager for this moment, had found herself oddly fascinated by the story of Trager and the teenager and had wanted to see the girl for herself, to add this girl's knowledge of Trager to her mental storehouse of info on the Sons. Now, though, she was sitting in County lockup, the girl across from her already working on a decent version of a prison face, and her entire case against Trager had gone to shit. She was really looking forward to taking this out on somebody, but her bearing didn't show it—she smiled kindly at Aisha, then suddenly the smile turned to venom.

"You're really smart, Aisha, aren't you? A fair bit smarter than the usual slut the MC keeps hanging around."

Aisha considered this, then shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so," she said.

Stahl leaned forward and spoke softly, insinuatingly. "We know Alex Trager was the one who pulled the trigger up there at your house," she said. "This isn't going to fly."

Aisha turned a blank face towards her. "Did you get a chance to read my statement?" she asked with what seemed like idle curiosity. "I came back into the house late, and saw Tex standing over my mom. She wasn't moving, and I was scared. I thought he'd be coming after me next, then I looked around and saw his gun..."

Stahl slammed her hand down on the table. The girl didn't jump. "I'm not here to ask you about your statement," she said with contempt. "It sounds like you've got it all memorized. How bad did he tell you he'd hurt you if you told the truth?"

Aisha sat perfectly still.

Stahl took a long, slow look at her. "That's an ugly, ugly scar, Aisha."

Aisha smiled. "You think so?"

Stahl ignored her. "They told me you have another one just like it healing on your back, huh?" she said sympathetically. "And those broken fingers... too bad about the budget cuts, can't imagine they'll be able to set those right down at Valley Correctional. That's where you're going, you know. Rough place for a little thing like you. You know, when they checked you out here, they said it looked like you'd had those fingers broken twice?" She gave an exaggerated flinch, closed her eyes, and shook her head. "That never heals very well. It's too bad, really. You were probably a really pretty girl. Those scars, though..."

Aisha looked back at Stahl and smiled.

"That's part of why you're here, huh?" Stahl asked, sympathy in her voice. "I guess after he did that to you, you didn't see any way out but to do what he said. Did he tell you he'd kill you if you didn't confess to the murder?"

Aisha continued smiling. "I'm not going to be answering any questions about... Alex Trager." Her voice was calm and polite, but she seemed to almost stumble over the name.

Stahl raised an eyebrow. "You don't think so?" She narrowed her eyes. "Let me explain how this works, honey. I have a _lot _of questions about Alex Trager, and you'll answer them or you won't be sitting in Valley doing a short spell for a self-defense charge, you'll be in a federal lockup indefinitely as a witness in a major ATF case who refuses to testify. On the other hand..." she smiled again, "you answer those questions now, and we can make the manslaughter charge go away, find you a nice place to start over. Start a new life, maybe go to college..."

The smile on Aisha's face didn't change. "I'm not going to be answering any questions about Alex Trager," she said again. "If you'd like to go over anything in my statement..."

"Your statement's bullshit, honey, and I know it and you know it," Stahl said, the annoyance starting to creep into her voice. "You think you're being a good girl? You're not going to be a rat? That's what they beat into your pretty little head? Let me _explain_ something to you. Your time doesn't even _start _until you answer my questions. You won't even get to sentencing. We'll move you over to a federal lockup, and you'll sit in protective custody without seeing the sun. We have all the time in the world."

In a consummate teenage gesture, Aisha rolled her eyes.

Stahl had to put some energy into battling the urge she had to do something violent with this girl. She hadn't found herself this angry with any of the guys, but something about Aisha's unshakeable confidence, coupled with her complete disregard of exactly how powerless she was in this situation, made Agent Stahl want to grab her and shake her. "I hope you don't think I'm kidding," she said. "The next time we have this conversation, it's going to be in a maximum security federal facility, and you'll be answering questions about what Alex Trager did to your mom before he killed her, and what he did to you when you were still a kid. What did he make you do, Aisha? Don't you want to get it all off your chest?"

Aisha kept smiling. "I'm not going to be answering any questions about Alex Trager. I told you that. All I've done wrong is what I told the Lodi police. I came back into the house late, and saw Tex standing over my mom. She wasn't moving, and I was scared-"

Stahl cut her off with a gesture. "That's fine, Aisha. I'm sure you think you know what you're doing, but I'm here to tell you that it's not going to be that easy. You're going to find that you have to answer these questions, and-"

Aisha cut her off. "No," she said. "I think you're going to find that I don't."

**-0-**

Back at Charming PD, Stahl was still fuming. She could make good on her threats, for a while at least, but did everyone affiliated with the Sons have to pull the same goddamned smug attitude? Trager had done it when he was looking at a potentially indefinite sentence, even a lethal injection, and now his little bitch was giving her the same fucking smirk and repeating her answers as if by rote.

Hale walked into the room, and waited for her to look up.

"Hey, David," she said. "It seems like nothing with these guys can ever be easy."

He didn't look at her. "You talked to the girl, then?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Worst case of Stockholm Syndrome since whatever happened in Stockholm. Won't give me anything, just says she's not going to answer any questions about Trager."

Hale looked uncomfortable. "I hate to be the one to give you some bad news," he said, "but I think maybe she's not."

Stahl looked up at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she asked. "We can lock her up until she does, we can-"

Hale handed her a photocopied sheet of paper, and she looked at it, hardly able to absorb what she was reading. When she looked up at him, her face had gone pale with rage. "You have got to be kidding me."

He shook his head. "Nope. It checks out."

Stahl closed her eyes. It was over.

She really wished she had cracked that little slut across the face in County when she'd had the chance.

**-0-**

Clay sat in chapel, rubbing his hands and musing on the two conversations he had to have today. Neither of them were particularly what he wanted to be doing right now, but he'd had to tell both men they needed to sit down with him, and today.

Tig was first. He stalked into the room, all evidence of the drugged state he'd been in earlier gone, dressed in fresh clothes and with his face hard and unrelenting. He didn't sit down across from Clay, but stood a little bit away from him, near the window, and waited for Clay to speak.

Clay looked up at him. "I need to know what all that meant, all that shit you said to me in there when you thought you were going down for this."

Tig looked surprised. "Nothing. Shit, my head wasn't working right. That little bitch had me all screwed up. I know you'd never stab me in the back. I was-" he made an impatient gesture near his head "-confused."

Clay nodded, laughing a little. "That poor kid," he said, "I thought she was going to fall over when you said that thing about Hap."

Tig shrugged. "I don't give a fuck what she thought about anything. And as far as Hap goes, she's his problem. He wants to get rid of her, let him throw her out. It's not my concern."

Clay sighed. "Yeah, that's the second thing," he said. "What the fuck is wrong with you? This girl, who if I'm not mistaken could have walked at any time, stuck around with you for fuckin' _years_, taking your abuse, goes to_ prison_ for you, by all accounts would do _anything_ for you... What the hell is all this shit you've been talking about these past few days? You hate her, you don't want to hear her name, she's Hap's problem, all this shit? Jesus, Tig, that girl loves you."

Tig snorted in derision. "That gash? Aisha? Let me tell you one thing I know about Aisha, who let's not forget, I have known for five fucking years, ok? Aisha doesn't love me or anybody. Don't make me fuckin' laugh." Tig could barely bring himself to think about it, had put his fist through the windshield of one of the cars that had come in that morning trying not to think about it, but every time he turned around, he could see that single-mindedness in her eyes. He'd never be able to explain it to Clay, but Aisha didn't _love_ him; she'd been damaged down to the foundations of who she was when he brought her home, and nothing he'd taught her, nothing he'd made her into in five years, had anything to do with love. Loyalty was not love.

Loyalty was also not handing him a cup of fucking drugged chamomile tea and going off to fucking prison while he was passed out. He lifted up his hands in a _what do you want me to do about it?_ gesture. "I fucking told you," he said. "She's Happy's fucking problem. He can deal with her shit when she gets out. If I have to hear about her again, if you deal with me and not him where she's concerned, I'll have her fucking killed in there, do you understand me?"

Clay looked around, anywhere but at Tig. "You know," he said conversationally, "I always knew it was some sick shit between the two of you, but this really throws me off. What is it? You don't feel like you're in control of her, she did some thinking for herself, so you have to hand her off to prove to her and everyone else that you really do own her? Is that it?"

Tig met his eyes. "I fuckin' mean it, Clay," he said. "You bring this up with me again, I make a phone call."

"Fine." Clay said. "I give up. You're seriously twisted, but it's not my look-out. Get Jax in here."

**-0-**

Jax looked like he hadn't slept for days. He probably hadn't. Clay decided not to ask him anything about V or what had happened, and instead just deal with the problem on his plate right now.

"This thing with Tig," he said. "I need your opinion about it."

Jax shrugged. "I don't know, Clay, looks like he's lost his goddamn mind over it."

"Yeah?" Clay asked. "He's acting crazy?"

Jax paused. "No," he said. "I mean, _yeah_, he's acting like _Tig_, but he's fine, unless someone brings her up. Someone brings her up, he goes fucking psycho, but if that doesn't happen, he's just Tig. Calmer, even. Almost..." he paused, and looked at Clay significantly, "almost like he's back to his old self."

Clay got what Jax was trying to tell him. Tig was back to his pre-Donna self. Before what Clay always thought of as "the incident."

Clay nodded, making a decision. He hadn't been too sure how this was all going to fall out with Tig, but if somehow this shit had wrenched the bastard back onto the straight and narrow path, what the hell, Clay was all for it. Too bad the girl had to be collateral damage in all of it, but that was how it happened sometimes. He frowned a bit, thinking, then tapped Jax on the shoulder. "Listen, I've got a job for you, don't want him knowin' about it. I'm trusting you, OK?"

Jax raised an eyebrow at him. "What now?"

Clay sighed. "What she did for him... that was a real good thing. And I get the feeling she's never gonna see anything good out of it from him." He looked at Jax. "Start making phone calls. I want you reaching out to anyone we know who's got influence at Valley—hell, I think LeRoi's got a baby mama doing a drug mule charge over there—and do what you have to do to get her looked out for. I want her doing _easy_ time, you hear me?"

Jax looked at Clay. It was probably the first decent thing he'd heard out of the man over this whole thing. He couldn't help thinking that it didn't feel right, Clay being so interested in Aisha's welfare, but he put it out of his head. This was the right thing to do. "I'm on it," he said.

After Jax left, Clay did some thinking. There had been absolutely no hesitation in Aisha when he'd slipped that drug into her hand. Hap had told her she'd looked right into his eyes when he had the gun to her head—hell, there was what she'd done to _Jax_. She was a kid, but he knew the look he'd seen in her eyes. A year or two in prison... hell, it could be the perfect thing.

He thought about Tig, who he kept so close because none of the weird shit he got up to could hide the man's loyalty and capacity for action. People like that, he reflected, he could _use._


	27. Epilogue

**_Here it is, guys, a little something to take with you while you wait for the next one... provided everyone wants there to be a next one?_**

Epilogue

Stahl was still furious the next morning. When Hale had brought her that fucking photocopy, she'd been unable to believe what she was seeing. It put Aisha's behavior at County into perspective, that was for sure. _That little bitch, _was all she could keep thinking. _That little bitch sat there... playing with me. _She remembered Otto's face, in Stockton, right before he'd grabbed the back of her hair, Trager's face as he told her he was walking out of there after giving her the single word "Russians." Sure, Russians, all right. There were no Russians anywhere near Charming. He'd dangled some fairytale in front of her.

She was packing her desk, Hale standing over her, trying to keep that smirk off his face as he watched her pile her folders into a box. She wondered idly, thinking of V and Aisha, which one of them he'd wanted to fuck this time—maybe both of them. He had a weakness for these biker skanks, just like he had for Tara. "What's wrong?" she said sweetly. "Sorry you weren't invited?"

He looked away from her. "Look, for all we know, there's some mix-up," he said uncomfortably. "I'll stay on it. Trager was in a bar last night telling anyone who'd listen that the girl wasn't anything to do with him, that she was with some biker buddy of his..."

Stahl rolled her eyes. Typical SAMCRO bravado, probably hoping it would get back to her, cover his trail... she stopped. Looked at Hale again. "They don't know," she said softly.

"I'll get on the phone and see what I can... sorry, what?"

She widened her eyes. "Oh, nothing. Nothing. Can you have one of your officers finish this packing for me? I have to do something before I leave town."

**-0-**

Clay smiled as he saw Stahl's dark sedan take the curve into the Teller-Morrow lot in a way that spoke of how furious she must be. This time, she didn't wait for him to come over to her, but had the door open and was walking up to him almost before she'd stopped the car. "Hello, Clay," she said conversationally. "I'm looking for your right-hand man. He around?"

Tig came out from behind one of the garage bays, dressed in his mechanic's shirt. He walked a little closer to her car, and rested his hand on it, almost protectively. "You need some work done?" he asked, leering at her in a way that gave an implied double meaning to the words.

She shrugged, friendliness coming off of her in waves. He couldn't stand this bitch. _At least_, he reflected, i_t was written out there on her face for everyone to see that she was a lying cunt. __She didn't have eyes that told you that every part of her belonged to you, that you could see right through her, that you'd always be able to read her, and then hand you a cup of tea full o_f—he forced himself back to paying attention to what she was saying.

"-thinking I'd just stop by and let you guys know I was heading out, give you my best for Victoria's speedy recovery. A bar brawl, huh?" She clucked her tongue. "Although I'm not sure which one of you I should be passing on my good wishes too?" She gave them a clueless shrug. "No? Doesn't matter? All of you?"

"She'll be fine," said Clay, smirking at her. "I'll let her know you sent her your best."

"Right," she said with a breathy smile. "Mr. Trager, I wanted you to know the DNA team went through that apartment of yours with a fine-tooth comb, and apparently any evidence of sexual activity was, like you said, well after the girl was past the age of consent. You're in the clear. Not that that matters now, of course, given the circumstances," she said. She gave him her best cute, wrinkled-nose smile. "You don't like to use protection, do you Mr. Trager?"

She saw him freeze, the hand on her car turning into a fist, and an instinct of self-preservation told her it might be best to prepare for a quick exit. Staring at him, she opened the door of her car, meeting his eyes until he'd taken his hand off the car and stepped back. She sat down in the driver's seat, then pushed the button to roll down the window.

"Oh, speaking of which," she said offhandedly, as she started the ignition. "I really enjoyed meeting your wife in County lockup." She gave him a wink. "She's a cute little thing."

After that, she pulled out of the lot about as fast as she could. It wouldn't make up for having to leave Charming empty-handed, but that look on his face, not to mention on Clay's, was certainly something she'd remember.


End file.
